Wednesday, September 30 at 1:00 pm: 1 West & 1 East Midday Music Concerts Begin

All are welcome to join us for our West & 1 East Midday Music Series in partnership with Marble Collegiate Church. From immigrant ballads and singing schools to parlors, organs, spirituals, folk songs, and Ives, our series "AMERICANA" asks a simple question across four weeks: How did American music become American?

Suggested donation is $10 per concert. Below is the full schedule of concerts, which will be held on Wednesdays at 1 pm on the dates below: 

September 30 - Church of the Transfiguration
Claudia Dumschat, organ and Molly Yuko McGuire, mezzo-soprano
Toccata and Fugue on “Chester” (William Billings) — Barbara Harbach
The Fourth of July (A Grand Military Sonata) — James Hewitt
Variations on “America” and Selected Songs— Charles Ives

October 7 - Marble Collegiate Church
Molly Yuko McGuire, mezzo-soprano and Friends
From Ballad to Folk Song: An American Musical Journey
A program tracing the development of American folk traditions, beginning with British and Irish ballads (“She Moves Through the Fair,” “The Unquiet Grave”, and “The Wife of Usher’s Well”), moving through Idumea and approximately 15–20 minutes of communal shape-note singing, and concluding with “Wayfaring Stranger”, “Cindy”, and “Hard Times Come Again No More” in arrangements by Alice Parker, Shawn Kirchner, and Luc Kleiner.

October 14 - Church of the Transfiguration
Thomas Hobson Williams, organist
Sonata No. 2 — Charles Ore
Variations on “Restoration” — Janette Linker
The Path to Glory: Four Spirituals — Evelyn Larter

October 21 - Marble Collegiate Church
Michael Hey, organist
Works by American composers Seth Bingham, Dudley Buck, Nahre Sol, and James Hewitt, alongside a set of early American parlor songs including “Home! Sweet Home!”, “Robin Adair”, “Soldier,” “Rest!”, and “The Last Rose of Summer”.