PHOENIXVILLE PA – “Simple Gifts,” consisting of two women who play 10 different instruments, will be featured Sunday (March 16) as a Phoenixville church continues its musical outreach to the community.
The band’s award-winning performers, Linda Littleton and Karen Hirshon, will rely on two violins, a mandolin, hammered dulcimer, recorders, and guitar. They’ll also employ some more unusual instruments, like the bowed psaltery, baritone fiddle, banjolin, guitjo, and doumbek. The program begins at 4 p.m. on the stage of St. John’s Lutheran Church, 355 St. John’s Cir.
No tickets are required, but free-will donations of a suggested $10 per person will be gratefully received. The event is part of the church’s 2024-2025 concert series.
A Variety of Ethnic Folk Music
Simple Gifts presents a wide variety of ethnic folk music. The duo covers “everything from lively Irish jigs and down-home American reels, to hard-driving Klezmer freilachs, haunting Gypsy melodies, and exotic Balkan dance tunes,” the church reports.
“Throughout their performances, they put their distinctive stamp on traditional tunes, blending styles from diverse cultures with their American roots,” it adds.
Littleton and Hirshon have performed as Simple Gifts since 1995. The duo was founded by Littleton in 1989, and has performed throughout the mid-Atlantic region.
Their concerts included appearances at the Smithsonian, Brooklyn Museum of Art, National Governors’ Convention, Longwood Gardens, and National Theater. They have also played at the Whitaker Center, Hershey Theatre, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Ontario Center for Performing Arts, and dozens of regional colleges and universities.
Simple Gifts has opened for Natalie MacMaster, Tom Paxton, John McCutcheon, Robin and Linda Williams, Jay Unger and Molly Mason, and Boys of the Lough.
More Church Concerts to Come
The church so far has held five concerts. They one in December that featured The Coventry Singers of Pottstown, and the latest that paid tribute to composer and pianist Thomas Keesecker, who has a long history with St. John’s.
Concerts scheduled to follow “Simple Gifts” are on:
- April 6 at 4 p.m., the Susquehanna University Choir, performing a variety of acapella music; and
- May 4 at 7 p.m., the St. John’s Choir and Friends, a 32nd annual concert with singers from the community, accompanied by the Providence Chamber Orchestra, and featuring “Requiem” with other music of John Rutter. Community singers are welcome to join the performance without an audition. They will attend rehearsals, each scheduled for 7-9 p.m., on March 23 and 30, and April 6, 13, and 27.
Photo of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Phoenixville from its Facebook page
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