Wednesday Folk Traditions
The Kevin Sharpe Group
Contemporary Gospel
July 22 at 6:30 pm

HADLEY—The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum continues its 28th season of WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS on July 22nd, 2009 with the contemporary gospel music of the Kevin Sharpe Group. Recipients of the 2006 New England Urban Music Award for Contemporary Gospel, the group plays a high-energy brand of gospel that blurs genre distinctions and appeals to a wide range of audiences. Sharpe and his band explore musical territory ranging from “straight ahead” jazz to funk and rock, but even as they veer into adventurous experiments with meter and rhythm, they always remain firmly rooted in the gospel tradition. The group’s music will move the body and stir the soul, appealing to religious and secular audiences alike with their dynamic, high-energy sound.

Kevin Sharpe began singing gospel music in his church choir at age seven, and began playing drums at age eleven. Sharpe later expanded his repertoire by studying classical percussion, arranging, voice, and choral conducting, and by playing and studying with accomplished musicians such as Yusef Lateef, Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer, Archie Shepp, and his brother Avery Sharpe, to name a few. Sharpe also gained experience as a teacher, earning a degree in music education and serving as choral director for Dartmouth and Smith Colleges. Thus, in forming the Kevin Sharpe Group, Sharpe was not only returning to his musical roots, but also bringing a wealth of new experience and influence to the gospel music he knew and loved, transforming it into something that sounds and feels at once traditional and contemporary. Those with a background in gospel as well as those who simply enjoy listening and dancing to music played with heart and passion are in for a treat when the group brings their live show to the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum this summer.

The Wednesday Folk Traditions concert series wraps up on July 29th with our final concert of the season, featuring World Rhythms with Tony Vacca. A world-renowned percussionist, Vacca and his group effortlessly fuse the rhythms of African, American, and Caribbean musical traditions with a spirit of jazz improvisation to form what Al Evers of Jazziz Magazine has called a musical “journey to all corners of the world: from Africa to India, Paris to New York City and beyond.” With their high-energy performance and call-and-response rhythms that include the audience in the ensemble, Vacca and his ensemble promise to send off this year’s Wednesday Folk Traditions concert series in style.

The concerts are funded, in part, with generous support from People’s Bank, Easthampton Savings Bank, Gage-Wiley & Co., MicroCal, LLC, and Western Massachusetts Electric Company, and many other local businesses.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive (Route 47) in Hadley, two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47. The Museum is open for guided tours Saturday through Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and by appointment. For further information about the tours and the Wednesday Folk Traditions series, call the Museum at (413) 584-4699.