Library notes: benefit concert
May 14, 2013to benefit the Morrill Memorial and Harris Library
The Sylvia Smith Percussion Duo will perform “A Viet Nam Memorial,” by Stuart Saunders Smith.
The concert includes spoken voice and is described as an “opera” for voice and percussion.
The work explores the relationship between personal and public grief by drawing on personal memories and a sense of place.
The percussion duo, founded in 1998, includes Sylvia Smith, a Strafford resident who is a music scholar and publisher,
and Ayano Kataoka, a marimba specialist who has recorded on Respect Records and 11 West Records.
The duo’s repertory is centered around the music theater pieces of Stuart Saunders Smith,
also a Strafford resident, who describes himself as a “confessional composer in the New England tradition.”
Smith retired to Strafford after teaching at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is a notable American
composer and percussionist, “in the forefront of a trend to encompass the diversity of the contemporary music world”.
The performance will be held at the United Church of Strafford.
Suggested donation is $10 and you are welcome to join us for refreshments afterward.
Posted by Morrill Memorial & Harris Library.
