A Spectacle of Music

The Newport Historical Society is pleased to host this year’s first Spectacle of Toleration event, A Spectacle of Music, on Sunday May 26, 2013 at the Colony House on Washington Square. Beginning at 1pm and running until 5pm, visitors can enjoy an afternoon musical concert celebrating the sounds of the 18^th century through four separate performances.

The schedule is as follows:

• 1PM Ministers of Apollo: Fife and drum corps
• 2PM Mother Earth Singers: Native American drum
• 3PM Gerard Edery and Meg Okura: Sephardic Song  
• 4PM Stuart Frank ande  Mary Malloy: 18th- and 19th-century ballads and songs

Ministers of Apollo

The Ministers of Apollo will present the Orange County Militia Drum and Fife Band who will perform military music of the American Revolution with period instruments in authentic clothing.

Mother Earth Singers

Tradition Native American drum and singing courtesy of the Dighton Intertribal Council.

Gerard Edery and Meg Okura

Gerard Edery, who has been hailed as “a master of Sephardic song.” by The New York Times, and violinist Meg Okura, will present “Treasures of Sephardic Song”. This concert traces the surprising and exotic musical synergies between Christians, Arabs and Jews from Medieval Spain to the present. Secular and liturgical songs from Ancient Persia, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, The Balkans and Syria will tell a rich musical story and promote the cause of cross-cultural appreciation and understanding.

Stuart Frank and Mary Malloy

Dr. Stuart Frank, Senior Curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, joins his wife, Mary Malloy, to sing 18^th and 19^th century ballads and songs. This concert is based upon Rhode Island sources in whalemen's shipboard journals from the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s collection. 

“Join us, and leave with an exposure to sounds that Newport’s earliest residents would have found familiar,” explains Newport Historical Society Executive Director Ruth Taylor. “Native American singing, Sephardic Jewish song, the music of shipboard life, and the military sounds of fife and drum will help our audience learn about colonial Newport by listening.”

The Spectacle of Toleration is a year-long event marking the 350^th anniversary of the King Charles II charter. Admission is free, donations welcome. For more information about the Spectacle project, and other state-wide initiatives marking the 350th anniversary, visit: http://www.spectacleoftoleration.org/.