I hope this post finds you and yours well enough during these challenging times. Please be good to yourself and to us all. As someone said, there is no them; there is only us…
Most of my musical work has, of course, vanished due to the pandemic. The nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and adult day programs I serve have barred visitors. Granges who had invited me to share vintage Grange songs cancelled. Other work evaporated, and future gigs are in question. I’m very grateful that my musical work with faith communities has persisted. The North Sebago United Methodist Church, where I was a subbing when things fell apart, has kept me on, creating weekly hymn videos. I’m also providing music for the Maine Seacoast Mission‘s Zoom worship services for some of the outer islands.
I took part in this year’s Virtual NEFFA, the online alternative to the cancelled New England Folk Festival, with this video featuring Marxophone, violin-guitar, and Harp-O-Chord.
I’m also providing music for Zoom sessions of the Portland, Maine circle of the Dances of Universal Peace, which pair chants from world spiritual traditions with simple dances.
I’m dusting off, tuning up, and sometimes repairing and restringing long neglected instruments in my collection, as well as delving into ancestral connections, Lithuanian language study, Quaker history, big questions of skillful navigation of these perilous times, and trying to work on next year’s woodpile. Stay safe!
