Seussical Jr. (With Purple Finches Youth Chorus)

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CCMS Welcomes “Wagner’s Women: Archetypes and Inspirations” on Nov 15

The stained-glass windows at Concord Community Music School iconic Recital Hall might shake a little when the Berlin Wagner Group (BWG) puts on its Wagner’s Women performance on Saturday, November 15. Wagner’s lengthy operas are often compared to four-course meals. But this free event promises attendees many of the highlights of a Wagner production, just in bite-size format.“By dissolving the distance between stage and audience, BWG creates intimate, powerful encounters with Wagner’s music and the artists who bring it to life,” says CCMS voice faculty member (and BWG founder) Peter Furlong.And what better place to dissolve the distance between the stage and the audience than at Concord Community Music School’s own 150-seat recital hall?Furlong, who teaches students from his home in Germany, and CCMS piano instructor Kathy Southworth first brought the idea of this performance to executive director Daniel Acsadi a year ago. The two organizations worked to tailor the performance to the Concord audience and was awarded grant funding from the City of Concord and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation in order to make the show a reality.“CCMS is a great venue for this concert because its intimate setting and beautiful acoustics let audiences experience Wagner’s music up close, while its welcoming, community-focused space reflects our mission to make world-class music accessible to everyone,” says Furlong. Motivated by his own experience trying to break into the world of singing Wagner, Furlong founded the BWG in 2017. His biggest goal in founding the group was to give singers the opportunity to coach, rehearse and perform Wagner’s works while learning new roles and building their performance resumes. BWG also aims to make Wagner’s operas — which are famously long, loud, and intricate— more approachable, which the group accomplishes through their “Snackable Wagner Series.” This series has featured events focused on various aspects of Wagner’s music through the years and includes the Wagner’s Women performances.The Wagner’s Women theme was conceived by BWG board member and soprano Jenny Ribeiro only a few years ago. Ribeiro had met Furlong years earlier as fellow performers in the New York City opera scene. But her first exposure to the BWG came in 2022, when she was invited to take part in the group’s Wagner’s Ring in One Evening performance in New London, New Hampshire. Six months later, Furlong reached out to her again, with an offer to join the group’s board. At one of her first board meetings, Ribeiro pitched the concept of Wagner’s Women, and the board quickly empowered her to develop the idea.“So many people talk about Wagner’s characters as archetypes, but what was really fascinating to me were the women in Wagner’s own life,” says Ribeiro. “I thought it would be interesting to develop a program based around how the women in his life paralleled the characters and the themes he brought to the women in his operas.”Ribeiro joined forces with fellow board member Dalia Geffen and the two produced the first Wagner’s Women performance in Boston in 2024. For the November show in Concord, Ribeiro will take pieces of the script and structure used in their initial performance and adapt them to the musicians and intended length of the event. The program will offer its audience a unique opportunity to enjoy Wagner’s music — typically performed in grand concert halls with large orchestras — in a far more intimate setting. Southworth, who also sits on the board of the BWG, will be the lone accompanist for the program. She will be joined by three singers – fellow BWG board member Ribeiro, soprano Joanna Parisi, and mezzo/contralto Rachel Barg. CCMS voice faculty Jennie O’Brien, who also happens to be Furlong’s sister, will narrate the show.“The audience can expect a light-hearted romp through Wagner’s world, in a fun and engagingly narrated concert,” says Furlong. “We explore the women who shaped Wagner’s life and discover how his search for loyalty and faithfulness in turn shaped the unforgettable heroines of his operas who are then brought vividly to life by soaring voices performed in a way you’ve never heard them before; up close and personal.”It should truly be a night to remember for those in attendance as the BWG and its Wagner’s Women series continues it mission to bring this niche art form into both traditional and unexpected spaces.“CCMS is a pillar of music education and performance in Concord and to be asked to be working with such a well renowned school, one that nurtures and helps its students excel, is an honor for BWG,” says Furlong. Ribeiro continues, “this performance is very much a homegrown, community effort and we’re excited to share it with the people of Concord.”###Above: Soprano Jenny Ribeiro, in another of Berlin Wagner Group’s productions, Ring in One Evening, 2022. Photo credit: Alexander Rivero
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Melissa Elsman Joins CCMS Faculty; Performs at October Bach’s Lunches

by Jeff Selesnick Melissa Elsman found herself at a crossroads. Well before she became the newest voice faculty at Concord Community Music School, Elsman was living in Chicago, freshly equipped with a BM in Vocal Performance from the Boston Conservatory and a MM in Vocal Performance from the Chicago College of Performing Arts, and working retail. She found the occasional opportunity to perform in the Chicago area, but the tedious cycle of auditions had her feeling an unwelcome disconnect with music. Itwasn’t until a friend reached out to ask if she could substitute in one of his classes that she truly discovered her love of teaching.“It felt so special to be involved in the process of helping people discover their voices,” reflects Elsman about her early teaching days. “I felt grateful to get to hear these beautiful voices and I realized I really loved teaching. I love the one-on-one connection, watching my students grow, and just… sound.”The arts were omnipresent in Elsman’s early years – her father was an amateur trumpet player and singer, her mother was an artist and elementary school art teacher, and her brother went on to become a music producer in California. While her first artistic foray was dance, upon entering junior high school and learning about the Elm Street Beat (the school’s show choir), she started taking singing lessons and quickly fell in love with the craft. Her adoration and acumen grew through her high school years, and when her high school voice teacher, Valerie Cowart, suggested she consider music as a career, Elsman was all in. “I was always the really shy kid growing up and music helped me express myself and connect with others.”It was during her time as a graduate student in Chicago that she first began learning about and performing lesser-known works by female composers. In one class, she was introduced to the famed French mezzo-soprano and composer Pauline Viardot, which sparked her interest in exploring music by women composers. Shortly after receiving her graduate degree, she collaborated with a friend she had met in the program to produce a recital telling the story of the famous couple Robert and Clara Schumann, weaving together their diary entries with the songs they composed.“That was the most connected that I had ever felt in a performance – being able to create the whole thing from picking the repertoire to telling the story and really diving in depth into their lives, I just fell in love with doing recitals in that way,” Elsman notes.As Elsman began to find her footing in the post-school Chicago music scene, she met her husband and, enticed by the less-populated, tax-free lifestyle that New Hampshire had to offer, temporarily relocated to Manchester, until they bought their home in Concord. It took the Nashua native a little while to settle back into her home state, as the pandemic hit just months after they moved in 2019. Eventually, she began presenting lecture recitals in her new hometown, featuring the female composers she had come to know and love in graduate school. After much searching, she discovered the music of Augusta Holmès and shared her findings with her Chicago teacher, Mark Crayton, with whom she continued to study over Zoom. Mark encouraged her to create a lecture recital featuring Holmès’s music and invited her to travel to Chicago to present it at her alma mater as a guest lecturer and performer. There, she performed the program and was interviewed by WGN-TV Spotlight Chicago. She has since continued sharing the program with her local community.“I listened to her music, and I was just captivated by it – so much so that I had a vivid dream about it and really felt like her music spoke to me and felt a deep connection to it,” remembers Elsman.Her first connection with the Music School came when she called to inquire about a local pianist who could collaborate with her. After she and her husband purchased their first home together in Concord last year, she wanted to put on a fun Halloween performance to introduce herself to the Concord community, and longtime piano faculty member Kathy Southworth volunteered for the job. The two have since performed that program, along with various other concerts around Concord — including Forgotten Voices: The Courageous Women Behind the Music, which they presented at Kimball Jenkins as a fundraiser for Thrive Survivor Support Center — as well as various musical soirées at the Elsman home.Before long, Elsman was being called on as a substitute instructor at CCMS and became a full-fledged member of the faculty this school year. Elsman will join with Southworth to kick off CCMS’s 2025-’26 Bach’s Lunch series on October 2 & 9, 2025 when they present La Femme Vaillante.“I am so excited to be at CCMS,” beams Elsman. “I am so impressed by the faculty, and I love the opportunities they give to the students. One of my goals is making music more accessible to the local community and I’m so glad to be able to collaborate with the Music School in doing that.”###
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CCMS’s 7th Annual Fiddle Fest Fuses Friends, Fellowship, and Folk (Try Saying THAT Ten Times Fast!)

Article by Jeff Selesnick”There’s so much to love about the Fall Fiddle Festival,” says Music School faculty member and Festival Chair Liz Faiella. The annual October tradition, which will be held Saturday, October 4, 2025 at the Music School, brings teen and adult fiddle fanatics to CCMS in a celebration of a variety of folk music styles and the lively folk community that calls Concord home.Now in its seventh year, the Festival looks to build off the success of CCMS’s annual Mandolin Festival, spearheaded by beloved former folk faculty member David Surette. “I looked up to David so much,” notes Faiella. “He worked to create a happy community around folk music here at the Music School and beyond. Mando Fest was part of that, and I wanted to do the same in the fiddle realm.”While certain small elements have changed throughout the years, the core of the festival has remained relatively the same. The slight alterations ahead of this year’s event include an increase in the number of workshop sessions from three to four and the inclusion of a jam option during each workshop for those that just want to run tunes. The goal is to create a party atmosphere for all involved, and the changes for this year’s event aim to do just that, right down to the brand-new, custom-made Fall Fiddle Festival banner that will make its debut this year.From collaborating with some of her favorite fiddlers from around the world to introducing guest faculty members to the vibrant Concord folk music scene, Faiella has a hard time picking her favorite aspect about the event. “I love the classes, but the jams might be my favorite. The feeling of bringing together musicians from all over, many of whom have never met, and finding that we all know so many tunes in common and can make awesome music together – that’s one of my favorite aspects of the Festival, and of folk music in general.”In a nod to the first ever Fiddle Festival, renowned Canadian fiddler Pascal Gemme will return as a guest faculty member after “bringing the house down” during his appearance at the inaugural event. Jenna Moynihan, who was also a featured player at a past Fall Fiddle Festival, joins Gemme as a guest faculty fiddler and looks to lend her knowledge of Scottish music and lyrical style to the festival atmosphere. Audrey Budington, along with Faiella, rounds out the CCMS faculty fiddlers that will be present at the Festival, and brings a versatility that spans jazz, folk, and rock to the table. Faiella’s brother, guitarist Dan Faiella, will be a mainstay at the jam sessions throughout the day, and he and fellow guitarist Yann Falquet will chime in during the evening concert.“The Fiddle Fest is always such a party,” says Faiella. “My hope is that it is just a day full of fun and connection, that the students get the chance to truly connect with the teachers, that they learn something that helps them enjoy their fiddle playing even more, that they find some new musical buddies in the classes and jams, and that everyone at the evening concert feels that they are part of something both enjoyable and beautiful.”To learn more about this year’s faculty, register for the workshops, or buy tickets for the evening performance, visit ccmusicschool.org/event/fall-fiddle-festival-workshops-concert-2/
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