Welcome to Wings of Song!

STURBRIDGE: Anyone who happened to be passing by little St. Anne’s Church in Fiskdale, Mass. the next couple of Mondays shortly before 7pm would see an unusual bustle of activity. Cars pulling up, people getting out and heading into the church. A double bass being carried in. A large rack of bells going in. A harpsichord being hefted out of someone’s van and brought inside. Someone carrying a djembe (African drum).

The community chorus Wings of Song is in the thick of preparations for its annual pair of concerts celebrating spring and the approach of summer. This year the theme is spring and summer in rural England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The time-period is immense—from “Merry it is” (“Mirie it is while sumer ilast”) and Summer is a-coming in (“Sumer is i-cumen in”), dating from the 1200s, to George Harrison’s “Here comes the sun” and John Rutter’s “For the beauty of the earth,” written in 1969 and 1978 respectively. There will be many vocal solos, and (as you might expect, having read this far) many special instrumental details and colorings.

“The underlying theme is magic,” says Wings of Song Director Nym Cooke. “Magic of these mellow seasons, which every year bring not only a renewal of life in the natural world but also a renewal of optimism, joy, sensual pleasures, and hope for many of us in the human world.”

“The magic doesn’t stop there,” Cooke continues. “Many of the songs we’ll present take us back to a world now largely lost—a world of rural beauty, simple country pastimes, and close-knit local communities. This is a world where a ‘smiling morn…tips the hills with gold,’ where children bring home ‘a branch of May’ on the first day of that lovely month, where ‘the hedges and fields are clothed in green,’ where the thrush’s evening song sounds among Cluden’s woods, where ‘a pure and perfect heart shines with a warm eternal light,’ where ‘the world is green and new, and the merry birds call gaily,’ where ‘one man shall mow my meadow, [and] two men shall gather it together’… There’s no end to the magical, evocative imagery of these halcyon, idyllic songs.”

Come and share the magic! Performances are at St. Joachim Chapel, St. Anne – St. Patrick Parish, 16 Church Street, Fiskdale (Sturbridge), MA on Saturday, May 16 at 7:30pm, and at Elm Street Congregational Church, 61 Elm Street, Southbridge, MA on Sunday, May 17 at 3pm. Both venues are handicap accessible. Plan to arrive early, especially for the Saturday performance, to be assured of a seat. The concerts are free, with a freewill offering collected at intermission. Free (and yummy) refreshments are served afterwards.