BRATTLEBORO — On Sunday, Oct. 20, at 5 p.m., the Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro will present “From Bach to Bossa Nova,” the debut concert of a new musical ensemble, aptly named Musica Eclectica.
The concert is a benefit for the Luz del Mundo Scholarship Fund, which assists students in Apopa, El Salvador, with costs of tuition, uniforms, and supplies.
The new ensemble Musica Eclectica, in its initial formation, is a trio of multi-instrumentalists and vocalists with multiple musical specialties: Jesse Lepkoff performs on various flutes and guitar and is a singer-songwriter; composer Dana Maiben performs on violin and piano; and soprano Christien Beeuwkes is also a cellist.
The concert will include chamber music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Franz Joseph Haydn, performed by the trio on period instruments - baroque flute or recorder, baroque violin, and baroque cello.
The program features the adagio and fugue from Bach's G minor sonata for solo violin, trios by Telemann and Haydn, and new music by Lepkoff and Maiben.
Lepkoff, a longtime West Brattleboro resident, performs nationally and internationally on early flutes and recorders, including many international tours with Boston Camerata and appearances with Smithsonian Chambers Players, Newberry Consort, Arcadia Players, and as a soloist with The National Symphony under the direction of Christopher Hogwood.
In addition, he is an accomplished guitarist. As a singer/songwriter, Lepkoff performs mostly his own compositions, which can have “the sophistication of art song, or the knee-slapping earthiness and humor of 1930s jazz and blues songs,” according to a news release. Lepkoff has recorded two CDs of his own Brazilian-inspired original songs. The Oct. 20 concert will include a set of his original songs with Earth-centered themes.
Another special feature of the concert will be the Brattleboro premiere of a song-cycle composed by Maiben, the group's violinist, titled Love is Not All ~ Six Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, performed by Beeuwkes with the composer at the piano.
Beeuwkes holds a master's degree in cello performance from the University of New Mexico and a graduate diploma in vocal performance and Early Music from the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass.
Hailed by The Boston Globe for her “supremely joyous artistry,” Maiben was awarded the 2018 Miriam Gideon Prize in composition by the International Alliance for Women in Music.
Proceeds from the concert will benefit students associated with Cristo Redentor, a small Lutheran Church in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of Apopa, El Salvador, and a Sister Church of Centre Congregational Church since 1996.
Since about 1998, members of the Centre Congregational Church have administered the Luz del Mundo Scholarship Fund for the children of Apopa, knowing that an education is the best and most sustainable path for these children to get out of poverty, obtain good jobs, and avoid gang membership and teen pregnancy.
The Fund supports students from pre-kindergarten through university, with a focus on grades K-8.
Admission to the concert is by donation. Attendees are urged to be generous; no one will be turned away for lack of funds.