07/01/2021
NHMF&S 2021 Press Release
The folks in New Harmony, Indiana, like most folks around the globe, have been waiting a very long time to experience something closer to "the good ole days". Christopher Layer, the founder of The New Harmony Music Festival & School is working hard to help with that idea, as he and his team of popular, folk and classical musicians kick off the tenth anniversary summer music festival Weds. July 7th at noon at the Contemporary Gallery in downtown New Harmony.
"For the last nine years of festival, our Noontime "pop-up" concerts around New Harmony have been very popular...The pop-up events are brief and very casual with musicians and audience members interacting before and after the concerts in a way that feels very friendly and neighborly, sort of like New Harmony itself." said Layer. Each of the five festival days from Weds thru Sunday will feature a pop-up concert around town. Evening events, including a film on Thursday evening, will take place from Weds thru Saturday evening.
"We wanted to try some new things this year with two piano concerts at the Roofless Church, one Friday evening and one Saturday morning," said Layer. All of the concert venues, with the exception of a couple of the pop-up concerts, are outdoors this season so folks can distance as they see fit." "The entire season is free to the public, so there is no handling of tickets, and folks can be comfortable coming and going, but we certainly need folks to donate at the events if they can afford to do so...We are suggesting $20, but any and all donations are welcome." The festival is a project of the New Harmony Artist's Guild, a long-standing non-profit organization founded by the former Clement "Clem" Biddle Penrose in 2004.
This year's festival includes some exciting new players including Violinist and "Scottish Fiddler" Randy Tracy and his partner Oboist, Sue Logan. Both are members of the Billings Symphony, in Montana. On a more local note, Alan Snow, the Concertmaster of the Evansville Symphony will be joining the line-up. Mindy Kaufman, the solo piccolo and flautist for the New York Philharmonic will join in the chorus starting Friday evening, performing the "Syrinx" for solo flute by Debussy in the Roofless Church.
Festival "regulars" include Mr. Layer who often turns up with one sort of bagpipe or another. Pianist Dr. Greg Kostraba who excels in American piano music. Young Ben Waldvogel, who often presents his own stylings of popular and New Orleans-style piano music, as well as his gifted harpist mother Martha, a 10-year veteran of NHMF&S. Although there is no face-to-face school this season, each of the artists are contributing videos that will post to the festival ed. outreach section of their website this Fall. Brick Briscoe, of WNIN will be on hand as well to help with moderation, and help to produce a radio digest of this year's concerts for broadcast later this year. For more info, you can visit the festival page "newharmonymusicfestival" or their website at
