Newtown Friends of Music Season Opener—

Remembering 9/11:

A Musical Tribute Planned

Just 12 days after the September 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center, Peggy Pearson performed with Greenleaf Chamber Players in Newtown. That concert a decade ago concert received rave reviews from who all who were  in attendance that afternoon.

For their opening concert of the 2011-12 season, NFoM will welcome Ms Pearson back to the stage of Edmond Town Hall, this time with members of Winsor Music, for a musical tribute to those lost, the survivors and the nation on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The afternoon performance, on Sunday, September 11, at 3 pm, will also feature several young musicians in quartet and quintet combinations.

Ms Pearson, the founder and artistic director of Winsor Music, has been solo oboist with Emmanuel Chamber Orchestra for 36 years, and has a long association with these and other musicians of international circles.

Founded in 1996 by Ms Pearson, the mission of Winsor Music, Inc. is to foster the appreciation and enjoyment of chamber music. The organization consists of three branches: a chamber music concert series given in Massachusetts at the Follen Community Church in Lexington and St. Paul’s Church in Brookline; a highly successful outreach program, in which students from the Boston area perform chamber music in retirement communities, homeless shelters and recovery homes; and the direction of a national consortium of chamber music groups that commissions new works. Accordingly, Winsor Music has been granted access to an exceptional group of performing artists.

As a memorial and tribute to the 9/11 attack, Ms Pearson commissioned a composition for the occasion entitled “The Eagle, A Song Without Words.”

About the work, its young composer, Lev Mamuya (pictured above), a member of Winsor Music, has said: “The inspiration for my piece is ‘The Eagle,’ a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

“In addition to reflecting on the simultaneous frailty and fierceness of the eagle, I have also tried to incorporate my experience as a five-year-old during the events of 9/11 and to express the tension I perceived between the innocence and playfulness of my childhood world and the strain and tension of the adults around me,” he said.

Newtown Friends of Music is proud to be sponsoring the world premiere of this piece at the concert on September 11.

The concert will also include music by Haydn, Bach and Mendelssohn.

NFM concerts are suited to people of all ages.  This particular concert will be a solemn reminder for adults and an enlightening and exciting experience for children. Students are encouraged to ask their music teachers for vouches to attend the concert at no charge and meet the teenage composer, Lev Mamuya. 

Single tickets for just this performance are available at the box office, 45 Main Street in Newtown, for $20, cash or check only.

Students in grades K-12 are admitted free of charge when accompanied by a ticket-holding adult. The box office will open at 2 pm the afternoon of the concert.

Parking is free behind Edmond Town Hall and the facility is handicap accessible with all seating providing excellent viewing and acoustics.

An informal reception following the concert offers concert goers the opportunity to meet and mingle with the musicians.

For information regarding future events including the music and artists scheduled later this season, write to Newtown Friends of Music, PO Box 295, Newtown CT 06470-0295, or visit NewtownFriendsOfMusic.org.

Friends of Music President Ellen Parrella can also be reached for additional information, by calling 203-426-6470.