Sounding Joy! Will Perform

At Coolidge State Historic Site

Sounding Joy!, a 25-member auditioned chorus of singers from Randolph and a number of surrounding towns, will perform at the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in Plymouth Notch Sunday, Sept. 23 at 1 p.m.

Founded and directed by Marjorie Drysdale of Randolph, the group has offered a wide range of innovative concerts in central Vermont since 1984.

Sounding Joy! will sing songs by Vermont composers Gwyneth Walker and Robert de Cormier. A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, Walker resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer, and now lives on a dairy farm in Braintree. In 2000 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Vermont Arts Council. The women of Sounding Joy! have performed works by Walker at Carnegie Hall.

De Cormier acted as music director of the New York Choral Society for 17 years. He spent many years as conductor and arranger for Harry Belafonte and has been music director for the trio of Peter, Paul and Mary for the past 20 years. In 1993, he helped found the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus and, as their director, both prepares and conducts performances with the symphony. In the fall of 2000 he established Counterpoint, an 11-voice professional vocal ensemble based in Vermont.

The concert is part of the Plymouth Cheese and Harvest Festival where a number of Vermont’s award-winning cheeses can be sampled, along with wagon rides, historic farm and craft demonstrations, tours and activities for the entire family. The President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site is located on Route 100A in Plymouth Notch and is open from 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. daily through October 14.

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