Summersong!  

A Weekend of Music and Merriment

Lynn & Will Rowan

August 25 – 27th

 

Sign up HERE!

 

A magical, musical retreat in the mountains of Vermont! Lynn and Will Rowan will lead a weekend of singing with dancing, theater, storytelling, drumming, games, and a fire circle! No music reading skills required, just a willingness and a love of singing. The weekend will include harmony singing from around the world: South Africa, Lithuania, the Republic of Georgia, Bulgaria, and more! We will also sing protest songs, rounds and chants to heal our hearts in these challenging times. There will be an evening fire circle with drumming, singing, and storytelling; an evening of theater improvisation; group dances (pick-up bands for the dances) and group games! Please bring instruments if you have them so you can learn tunes and play for the dancing! The weekend will include a Saturday night concert by Windborne, and workshop participants will have the opportunity to perform as the opening act.  Join a kindred of music lovers and celebrate summer’s end with us!

 

Meals and accommodations

The traditional farmyard barn where we will be rehearsing has a common sleeping area upstairs. Participants may alternately bring tents to camp onsite. There are no onsite showers, but there is swimming nearby in a stream and pond. All participants will take part in the daily chores of the camp including cooking our communal meals, cleaning up after meals, and keeping our space tidy, helping build our community for the weekend.

 

Location

The weekend will be held at Whitehill Farm, located in the southern most point of the Northeast Kingdom. The Farm was a traditional dairy farm and we continue to pasture heifers to this day. In fact, the heifers will be in residence the same time you will be. The homestead continues to maintain 40 acres most of which are pasture, but there is a 3 acre parcel of cedars and five acres of sugar maples that are tapped each year. There are outstanding views from the top of this traditionally rugged property where you can take in the White Mountains and the Connecticut River. The property also has a small stream and a neighboring farm yard pond where we can cool off each day.

 

Cost

$100

Please make check out to and mail to:                                                     Heather Alger                                                                                                          Whitehill Farm                                                                                                                     59 Blaisdell Lane,                                                                                                                 East Ryegate, VT 05042

 

Ages

10-Adult

Camp is not geared towards children under 10. Participants aged 10-11 should be accompanied by an adult or older sibling.  Twelve and older can attend independently.

 

Sign up HERE!

 

For more information, please contact Heather Alger:  Heather.l.alger@gmail.com

 

Directors:  Lynn & Will Rowan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will Rowan

Will was raised in a community where folk music and dance played an important role in bringing people together to celebrate. He fell in love with ensemble singing while touring with Village Harmony, learning from master singers and dancers at home and abroad. He studied music composition and ethnomusicology at Marlboro College, winning awards in choral composition and publishing several pieces. He is finishing a masters in choral conducting at Bard Conservatory, honing his musicianship and broadening his repertoire. Will is also a multi-instrumentalist, playing banjo, piano, accordion, bagpipes, and percussion. With his sensitive style and years of cross-cultural teaching experience from international tours with Northern Harmony, Will is now a sought after song leader, teaching Village Harmony camps in the US and Lithuania.

 

Lynn Rowan

Lynn’s passion for singing and learning about other cultures through music and dance has driven her life’s work as a performer and music educator. She studied vocal performance, conducting, and theater at Marlboro where she founded a world music ensemble. In addition to international touring experience with Windborne and Northern Harmony, Lynn has taught choral singing at Revels North, Village Harmony, the Vermont Theater Company, the New England Youth Theater and in Elementary and High Schools around New England. Whether in harmony singing or theater games, her clear and enthusiastic teaching style makes her a favorite with kids, teens and adults alike.

 

Concert by Windborne

Presenting their newly released Song On The Times Project

7:30, Saturday August 26th

$15 Admission (contact heather.l.alger@gmail.com for tickets)

(free for Summersong Weekend Workshop participants)

 

 

 

 

 

Whitehill Farm                                                                                          59 Blaisdell Lane,                                                                                   East Ryegate, VT

For more information, Contact Heather Alger:                                    Heather.l.alger@gmail.com

Summersong workshop participants will open the evening with some songs learned earlier that weekend, and then Windborne singers share songs from their new Song On the Times project along with some old favorites.

SONG ON THE TIMES is an illustrated songbook and album that brings together music from working class movements for peoples’ rights in the US and UK over 400 years, and sings them for today’s struggles. Enjoy Windborne’s richly harmonized arrangements with a book of beautifully illustrated lyrics and music, alongside history and personal reflections on the songs from activists, singers, and scholars. More about Windborne’s Song On the Times Project: http://www.windbornesingers.com/

Internationally acclaimed folk band Windborne is a group of vocal chameleons who specialize in close harmony singing, shifting effortlessly between drastically different styles of traditional music within the same concert. Their musical knowledge spans many continents and cultures, but they remain deeply rooted in American folk singing traditions. Praised for “the purity of their voices, strength of their material, and attention to detail in their arrangements,” Lynn Mahoney Rowan, Will Thomas Rowan, Lauren Breunig, and Jeremy Carter-Gordon share a vibrant energy onstage – their connection to each other and to the music clearly evident. They educate as they entertain, telling stories about the music and explaining the characteristics and stylistic elements of the traditions in which they sing.

Where: Fitzwilliam Town Library, Fitzwilliam, NH

When: December 4th, 2pm

 

Folk Duo Lynn and Will Rowan present a concert of uplifting songs for the winter holidays. This concert draws from and builds on their recording Sing the Sun’s Return: Wassails and Carols for Yuletide, a CD alternative to mainstream holiday music. Lynn and Will have been teaching and performing together for over a decade. Having traveled all over Europe learning traditional polyphonic music from master singers, a deep love and understanding of harmony infuses everything they do. They teach regularly for Village Harmony and Revels North, and have performed around the world as musical ambassadors for the US with their band Windborne. Lynn and Will are passionate about community music with roots in the ancient past. This comes out not only in their extensive knowledge of traditional music, but also in their original music. Their shows range from Lithuanian hymns to the sun accompanied on bagpipes to mournful tragic ballads to rollicking pub-style songs about the Norse Gods. Whether listening to their breathtaking harmonies, or singing along to their crafty arrangements, Lynn and Will’s sheer joy of singing is sure to capture your heart.

Will Rowan will be appearing for his solo show Lyres, Banjos, and Bagpipes! at Western Massachusetts Pagan Pride Day 2016.

11:30 AM September 25th, 2016.

The Florence Civic Center, Northampton, MA.

Lynn and Will Rowan will appear at Central New York Pagan Pride Day on September 27th, 2016.

The event will take place at Long Branch Park in Syracuse, NY.

Lynn and Will Rowan will give a concert of traditional and original ballads, story-songs, heathen chants, and Lithuanian pagan music. They will also teach a workshop on Pagan and Heathen ritual music.

Event schedule and details to follow at the CNYPPD Website

Lynn and Will Rowan will do a concert at Feast of Lights 2016 in Amherst, MA hosted by the Earthspirit Community.

More information.

It’s come to our attention that the CD packaging of Sing the Sun’s Return is missing the engineering credit for Alan Stockwell of Black Mountain Audio. We’ve tried to piece together what happened, and the best we can figure was that it was a copy-paste error somewhere in  the process between our original draft of the liner notes (in which it did appear) and the CD graphics file.

So just to set the record straight: Alan Stockwell is an awesome engineer! We first met him in 2003, at his old Studio SoundDesign in Brattleboro. We were part of a big chorus Peter Amidon assembled for his first Amidon Arrangements recording session. What I remember about Alan from then is how patient he was with the logistics more than fifty people (including us stir-crazy teenagers) hanging around his studio. For that session, I got to stay around for an extra day and watch the first day of editing and mixing. I remember being impressed with how he somehow managed to edit the straight ahead performance of Mary Alice Amidon and Tony Barrand’s freely syncopated performance and turn them into a coherent duet that sounded like it could have been rehearsed and performed together (they had recorded on separate days). Watching Alan work opened up a world of audio recording possibilities that I had never even considered before. The recording projects I’ve worked on since then have always been inspired by the technical mastery with an unaffected final product that Alan is so good at.

So I count myself lucky to have been able to work on two separate recording projects with him this year, now at Black Mountain Audio, his cozy little studio attached to his home. Alan continues to demonstrate incredible patience with the complicated editing process of four Windborne backseat drivers or Lynn and my complicated guest artist arrangements.

There is a fine art to taking a raw recording and turning it into something you actually want to listen to, no matter how good the performance is. Alan is a master of that art; his mixes add to a recording without adding so much that you’re listening to the effects rather than the performers. And he’s a complete wizard with audio fixes, let me tell you! It’s no wonder that so many folk artists in Southern Vermont work with him; we cannot recommend him highly enough for all of your recording, mixing, mastering, and live sound needs.

Alan, we salute you and here’s our humble attempt to fix our mistake:

Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered masterfully by the great Alan Stockwell, Black Mountain Audio, Brattleboro, VT.

Thank you, Alan!

Celebrating the release of their new CD, Sing the Sun’s Return: Wassails and Carols for Yuletide, Lynn and Will Rowan present a concert of traditional and original songs for the winter solstice. With special guests, Aidan Talbot and Chris LaFond, the Rowans will sing everything from raucous old feasting songs to haunting new songs about the dark time of the year, all in rich harmony. Come warm yourselves by singing along in this cold season!

7:30 – December 5th

Ashfield Community Hall, 521 Main St,  Ashfield, MA

Buy tickets here!