I want to thank you for your attention and support of the Experiencing the Arts program at Mascoma High School. Your support has helped enable students to connect with their community and has helped the community become part of the myriad of Experiencing the Arts events. I am sad to report that less than an hour after I put post cards in all the Mascoma faculty mail boxes inviting them to our concert with The Boys Choir of Kenya, (after having finished getting out all my press releases, after each student designed and hung a poster for the event, having prepared the Experiencing the Arts class with movies about Kenya, etc., etc.), Lebanon Opera House received an e-mail saying Kenya Boys Choir was unable to perform for them on October 12th. Lebanon Opera House is in the process of rescheduling the event, however our October 12th event has been canceled. I apologize for any confusion that this might cause. It was beyond our control. Thank you again for your support. Stay tuned.

Christopher Morse Director, Experiencing the Arts

Experiencing the Arts Peak Event Supports Youth Education Series.

Excitement is building for Mascoma's Experiencing the Arts students as they look forward to bringing The Boys Choir of Kenya to the Upper Valley. This year's Peak Community Event will also help support the Lebanon Opera House's Youth Education Series (YES). During the day of October 12th the Kenya Boys will be performing for several dozen schools that participate with the YES program and at 7:00 P.M. that evening they will perform for the general public for the Experiencing the Arts fund raiser.

Lebanon Opera House is partners with Experiencing the Arts through the NH State Council on the Arts Artlinks program. For the past three years they have generously offered the use of the Opera House for the fund raisers. "The fund raising component was not always successful," said Experiencing the Arts Director, Christopher Morse, "I didn!=t want to loose sight of the benefit of having a student run event, but wanted to better maximize the contribution of the event, as arts event for the Upper Valley, our partners at Lebanon Opera House, and as our fund raiser. I asked Lebanon Opera House Director, Buzz Boswell and Associate Director, Heather Clow if we could use our efforts to help sponsor events that they would also include on their YES roster. In this way, even if the fund raising component didn!=t live up to our hopes, we would be benefiting the students that come to the YES events." In response to this new collaboration, Lebanon Opera House helped coordinate two spectacular events for the Experiencing the Arts Peak Events this year -- both performers will also perform for their YES shows. The October 12th event with The Boys Choir of Kenya, and on April 27th a three component event with Blues guitarist, Joe Bonamassa: at 10:00 A.M. Bonnamassa will perform for YES, from 1-3 P.M. Mascoma Hosts Master Guitar Class with Joe Bonamassa, and at 7:00 P.M. that evening he will perform at Lebanon Opera House for the Experiencing the Arts Peak Community Event.

Each Experiencing the Arts student has designed a poster for the October 12th Kenya Boys Choir concert. They have been watching films about Kenya, and look forward to communicating with members of the group when they arrive for their tour in America. At the event they will act as ushers, help the choir, and participate in the many facets of running an event.

"Nothing would be more exciting for the Experiencing the Arts students than to have a big crowd come to support their efforts," says Morse, "The Kenya Boys Choir is an exuberant performance, inspirational, not to be missed. Their performance is a spectacle of sounds and sights, bright costumes, and a variety of music. Please, come join us for The Boys Choir of Kenya, October 12th, 7:00 P.M., Lebanon Opera House, call 603-448-0400, for reserved seats $15."

From their website:

Since their first participation in the Kenyan Music Festivals in 1989, no other African youth choir has dominated peer competition or revealed the heart of Africa like the Boys Choir of Kenya. Based in Nairobi, the choir has earned acclaim throughout Kenya and abroad as a disciplined choral program with a work ethic that parallels the King's College Cambridge Choir and the Harlem Boys Choir. Performing a diverse repertoire from traditional Masaai and Samburu chants to contemporary pieces from around Africa, as well as an inspired corpus of European and American choral classics ranging from Bach to Mozart, Negro Spirituals, and Caribbean folk songs the Boys Choir of Kenya is Africa's first boy choir of international repute. A performance of the Boys Choir of Kenya is simply an experience of a lifetime, a spectacle both aurally and visually captivating and, oh, the costumes!