GUILFORD — Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 51st concert season, will present its annual Midwinter Musicale program on Saturday, Feb. 25, at Guilford Community Church, just over a mile from Exit 1 off Interstate 91.
The evening will begin with a pre-concert soup supper at 6 p.m., continue at 7 p.m. with a concert featuring the HeartSoulVoice duo from Boston, and be capped by a dessert reception.
The pre-concert light supper, included in the $12 admission fee, will offer hearty homemade soups, Vermont bread and cheese, salad, and fruit. An array of desserts will be served at a post-concert reception.
The musical program will begin with original songs on themes of love, protest, and healing. Next will be a set of seasonal songs from the plays of William Shakespeare, including “Blow Blow, Thou Winter Wind” (As You Like It), “When Icicles Hang by the Wall” (Love's Labours Lost), and “The Willow Song” from Othello, as well as tunes popular in the Elizabethan era.
An improvised song, based on “love lines” contributed by audience members attending the supper, will loosely illustrate one mode employed by the duo's harpist in her work as an expressive arts therapist. The program will end with a set of traditional and original Celtic music.
HeartSoulVoice, founded in 2011, is Janna Maria Fröhlich on voice, harp, and piano for this performance, and Joy Grimes on violin/fiddle. The duo performs traditional Celtic and early music, as well as original songs, tunes, and improvisations based on pop/folk/jazz and Celtic forms, sometimes with the addition of guitar in its instrumentation.
Fröhlich is a practicing board-certified music therapist and mental health counselor. She was vocal soloist for many years at First Church UU in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. She has performed with a number of Boston-area early music groups on voice and harp, including with Cappella Clausura under FOMAG auspices in 2010.
Grimes is much in demand as an early music and classical violinist/violist with numerous Boston-area groups. She enjoys the local Celtic music scene and is a former member of the West O'Clare traditional Irish dance band. She teaches Suzuki and advanced level violin and runs workshops on Baroque instrumental dance music.
Guilford Community Church is at 38 Church Dr., off Route 5 via Bee Barn Rd., just after the Guilford Country Store. The building is fully accessible.