On Saturday, June 7, several Brookline and Boston organizations are presenting a new outdoor family festival celebrating music and landscape. The Sounds and Scenes Festival takes place from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm on the Brookline side of Leverett Pond in the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Olmsted Park along the famed “emerald necklace” park system. The festival is free, open to the public, and will feature concerts and a variety of participatory activities geared primarily to younger children ages 3 to 10. All activities will directly or indirectly involve music, sound, or some connection to the outdoor landscape and nature. For further information on the Sounds and Scenes Festival, contact Brookline Adult & Community Education at 617-730-2700, or go to www.brooklineadulted.org.
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WHO:
National Park Service/Frederick Law Olmsted National
Historic Site, Brookline Adult & Community Education, Town
of Brookline Parks and Open Space Division, Emerald
Necklace Conservancy present
WHAT:
Sounds and Scenes Festival, a free outdoor family festival
celebrating music and landscape for younger children.
Family concerts Maria Sangiolo (10:00 am), Brookline Music
School faculty and students (11:00 am), Lorraine and
Bennett Hammond (12:00 pm)
Participatory activities for children ages three (3) to ten
(10) offered by local community, cultural, and educational
organizations, plus a pre-festival guided birding by ear
walk (9:00 am) and a landscape walk for adults (1:00 pm).
Picnicking is encouraged.
WHERE:
Allerton Overlook (intersection of Allerton Street and Pond
Avenue), Brookline side of Leverett Pond in Olmsted Park
WHEN:
Saturday, June 7, 2008 - 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
HOW:
MBTA Green Line “D” line Brookline Village stop and “E”
line Riverway stop, and Bus Numbers 39, 60, 65, 66
For further information: 617-730-2700,
www.brooklineadulted.org
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The Sounds and Scenes Festival will present 45-minute children’s
concerts at 10:00 am, 11:00 am, and 12:00 pm in the grass oval below
Allerton Overlook at the intersection of Pond Avenue and Allerton
Street, Brookline. Festival-goers are welcome to bring blankets and
enjoy a picnic on the landscape.
Connecticut-based singer-songwriter Maria Sangiolo, winner of the 2007
Parents Choice Award for her 2007 CD Under the Mystic Sea, will
perform at 10:00. Originally from the Boston area and a graduate of
Simmons College and the local coffee house circuit, Maria has
performed at venues and festivals around the United States.
A group of faculty and students from the Brookline Music School take
the stage at 11:00. Founded in 1924, the Brookline Music School offers
comprehensive music instruction to people of all ages and backgrounds
in the local community and sponsors a full schedule of concerts and
performances throughout the year.
At 12:00, nationally recognized folksingers and educators Lorraine and
Bennett Hammond of Brookline will perform a lively set. Lorraine
Hammond is an accomplished Celtic harp and five-string banjo player
and is perhaps the nation’s foremost exponent of the Appalachian
dulcimer. Bennett Hammond, a talented acoustic guitar player and
teacher, has toured around the U.S. with his wife Lorraine since 1986.
For further information on the performers, go to www.mariasangiolo.com
(Maria Sangiolo), www.bmsmusic.org (Brookline Music School), and
www.greatacoustics.org (Lorraine and Bennett Hammond).
In addition to these concerts, a number of local community, cultural,
and educational organizations are presenting hands-on activities that
connect both young people and adults to landscape and nature,
primarily through the media of music or sound. These activities will
be in the vicinity of the concert area, on the Brookline side of
Leverett Pond. Food vendors will also be on-hand nearby with lunch
items, snacks, and beverages.
Two local youth choruses will invite children and accompanying adults
to join them in musical activities. The Boston City Singers will lead
a participatory group sing on the themes of landscape and nature. PALS
Children’s Chorus fourth graders will be performing choreography of
selections from Camille St.-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals.”
Sociedad Latina of Boston’s Mission Hill will conduct a rhythm-making
activity using natural elements such as sticks, stones, and leaves.
Another Boston-based group, La Pinata youth folkloric performance
group of Jamaica Plain, will invite the public to make musical
instruments from recycled materials. Massachusetts College of Art and
Design will have a table nearby for decorating these instruments.
The Friends of Fairsted, a non-profit supporting the mission of
Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, will present a “Meet Mr.
Olmsted” question and answer session with Jamaica Plain activist Gerry
Wright as Frederick Law Olmsted. Other activities will be offered by
the High Street Hill Association, the Friends of Leverett Pond, the
Brookline Recreation Department, the Brookline GreenSpace Alliance,
the Emerald Necklace Bird Club, the morning’s performers, and others.
In addition, the Emerald Necklace Bird Club will offer a beginner’s
birding by ear walk immediately preceding the festival at 9:00 am, and
Hugh Mattison of the Friends of Leverett Pond will lead a one-hour
walk through Olmsted Park for adults immediately after, starting at
1:00 pm.
The primary groups organizing the Sounds and Scenes Festival are the
National Park Service/Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site
(www.nps.gov/frla), Brookline Adult & Community Education
(www.brooklineadulted.org), Brookline’s Parks and Open Space Division
(http://www.townofbrooklinemass.com/Parks/aboutus/index.shtml), and
the Emerald Necklace Conservancy (www.emeraldnecklace.org). The
official media sponsor is the Boston Parents’ Paper
(www.parenthood.com).
According to Mark Swartz, National Park Service ranger at Frederick
Law Olmsted National Historic Site, this festival is the latest in a
series of programs his site has organized over the years in
partnership with Brookline Adult & Community Education. These two
Brookline-based organizations have used various arts and humanities as
a “hook” for educating the community through public programming about
the legacy of renowned park designer Frederick Law Olmsted and the
value of landscape generally. Last year’s collaboration was a well-
received panel discussion and performance on connections between
landscape and music (“From Beethoven to Ballads”). The success of that
event led the two organizations to further tap this theme through a
family-oriented program.
Brookline’s Division of Parks and Open Space and the Emerald Necklace
Conservancy came on board this year to help organize a larger event at
Olmsted Park along the Olmsted-designed “emerald necklace” park
system. In addition, the High Street Hill Association
(www.highstreethill.org), whose members have devoted the past 27 years
to maintaining and restoring their neighborhood park “jewel,” has
provided important financial and advisory support.
This event is funded by a grant from the Brookline Community
Foundation. Brookline Community Foundation is a non-profit
organization with a mission to promote a strong, engaged and inclusive
community by identifying and raising public awareness of community
needs, inspiring philanthropy and volunteerism, advocating for equal
access to community resources, and supporting local non-profit
organizations. Additional financial support has been provided by the
Boston Parks and Recreation Department.
