Eclipse & Friends To Perform Two Christmas Concerts At Newtown Meeting House

The local singing group Eclipse will offer two performances of their annual Christmas fundraising concert this year, on consecutive nights at Newtown Meeting House. The trio will perform on Friday and Saturday, December 17 and 18, at 7:30 pm each night. Doors will open at 7 each evening.

This marks the sixth consecutive year Eclipse has planned a fundraising Christmas concert. This year the group will donate all proceeds of the concerts to The International Myeloma Foundation.

Tickets for the Christmas concerts are $20, and are available by calling 203-426-3939.

Previous charities included Danbury Hospital Diabetes Fund, The Alzheimer’s Disease Fund, MVCPC, Inc. (Camp Jabberwocky), Donate Life America and Saint Dominic’s Home.

Eclipse is made up of Matt Wilkie and his twin sisters, Helen Malyszka and Trish Keil. They were born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the trio performed throughout the country. In 1975 they moved to the United States where they performed acoustic music along the East Coast.

In 1986 Andy Lafreniere joined the band, bringing his experience as an acoustic and electric guitarist as well as his skills as a composer and arranger. The group then evolved into a seven-piece band, playing a variety of popular music of the seventies and eighties.

Staying true to their roots the group has just released a new acoustic/Celtic Christmas CD, It’s Christmas Now!, which includes original and traditional songs with strong vocal harmonies.

All members of Eclipse now make Connecticut their home. Andy and Helen are co-directors of the Suzuki Talent Education School of Sandy Hook (where they have been for the past 27 years), where they teach early music programs as well as lessons in piano and classical guitar. Trish also teaches in the school’s early music program. Matt runs a successful contracting business (Scotia Contracts) out of Southbury.

In previous years, the single performance concert has been sold out before it was advertised. So this year a second evening is now planned.

Call 203-426-3939 for further information and reservations. Additional information about the band is available at Eclipse-BandLLC.com.

Local CD Release Party This Weekend

Meanwhile, to celebrate the debut of It’s Christmas Now! a CD release party is planned for this weekend in nearby Huntington.

Eclipse will be at Huntington Street Café, 90 Huntington Street (Route 108) in the Huntington section of Shelton, on Sunday afternoon. Doors open at 12:30 and the music will start around 2 pm with special guest Katie Wilson.

Contact the café at 203-925-9064 or visit HuntingtonStreetCafe.com.