2007 Calendar for Oceanside Meadows Innstitute for the Arts and Sciences

Thursday, July 12th, 7:30 p.m. Maine: Guess Where from the air. Photographer Chuck Feil will bring his magnificent flying machine a homemade gyrocopter, from which he has taken an extraordinary collection of photos of Maine from the Air. Chuck together with author Murad Sayen, in their new book from Down East Press, present Maine in a whole new light -- as a series of visual and written puzzles to test the reader's knowledge of Maine by identifying the locations depicted in the photos and sometimes by answering detailed questions about the locations themselves. The book's text provides clues about each location and photo. Questions are then posed for the reader with the answers in the back of the book. The book's text is whimsical and entertaining. Depending on a reader's knowedge, some locations will be easy to identify while others will leave even the most devoted Maineiac pulling his or her hair. Whether readers are interested in solving the mysteries or not, Feil's photos will take them on a delightful and beautiful tour of the state. CHARLES FEIL is the author and photographer of several books featuring photos taken from his homemade gyrocopter. MURAD SAYEN is a photographer, writer, and painter, who previously was a world-renowned craftsman of fine-art knives. This is his second book. Notably, Chuck's e-mail signature reads "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" Join Chuck and Murad for an undoubtedly fun filled evening and be challenged by their presentation of many of the photos from their spectacular new title from Downeast. Admission is free, with all donations going to support Chuck and Murad's adventures, their spectacular book will be available for signing. Seat reservations strongly recommended. Tel: (207) 963-5557.

Thursday, July 19th 7:30 p.m. Wild Asparagus is a five person band from Western Massachusetts that Ben and Sonja discovered on a warm Caribbean winters night in the US Virgin Islands, where they have an understandably huge following. Drawing upon music from New England, the British Isles, and Canada, as well as classical sources, Wild Asparagus takes an original approach to the traditional dance music of our folk heritage. Using their unique blend of instruments, creativity, and skills, they offer a sensitive and powerful performance. Since 1984, Wild Asparagus has been highly successful in bringing their music concerts throughout the United States. Wild Asparagus is Ann Percival on piano, guitar, and vocals. Ann's playing is highly inventive while still maintaining an irresistible rhythm. David Cantieni, a woodwind wizard, pours forth lively melodies and liquid harmonies on his flutes, tin-whistle, oboe, saxophone and bombard. George Marshall is an accomplished English concertina player and also provides driving rhythms on bodhran and bones. Mark Murphy on bass is a dynamo of musical energy. Becky Tracy's masterful fiddling is that rare combination of energy and beauty. Wild Asparagus has appeared at numerous major festivals and dance events throughout the United States, Canada, and Alaska including: Pinewoods, Fiddle and Dance at Ashokan, The Swannanoa Gathering, City Stages, Lake Eden Arts Festival, Sierra Swing, John C. Campbell Folk School, Old Songs, Falcon Ridge and the Hudson River Revival. Wild Asparagus has released six recordings on its own label. Join us for a toe tapping evening of magnificent music in our historic hall. Tickets $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Reservations strongly recommended. Tel. (207) 963-5557

Thursday, July 26th 7:30 pm Bruce Kidman of Maine Nature Conservancy Maine is known by its salt bays and scenic coastline, serene forests and mountain trails. People are drawn to its powerful rivers and many lakes, its farms, and islands. Some come for the fishing, hiking and boating, while many are content to admire the slant of light on a granite outcrop or inhale the fragrance of the balsam fir. For those who cherish Maine’s varied and spectacular landscape, this is a time of tremendous opportunity and significant challenge. For twenty years, the Land for Maine’s Future Program (LMF) has been at the heart of efforts to conserve the best Maine has to offer, to make sure these pleasures continue to await every resident and visitor. This award-winning land conservation initiative has assured access to lakes, rivers, streams and coastal beaches. It has protected important wildlife habitats, fragile mountaintops and unique natural places. Working with other state agencies and with towns and land trusts, the Land for Maine’s Future Program has helped acquire properties that can both preserve our heritage and welcome our use. In this anniversary year, however, the program is cash strapped and in need of help. In November, Maine voters have a chance to refund the program with $17 million in bond funds, but first supporters need to get out the vote. This effort is led by Citizens to Save Maine’s Heritage which is now raising funds to mount just such a campaign. As policy director for The Nature Conservancy in Maine, Bruce Kidman, has been working to sustain the LMF program for over a dozen years. He has co-led several successful Land for Maine’s Future campaigns and is now deep into the third. Along with that experience, he will bring a nuts and bolts knowledge of land conservation gained through work on nearly a million acres of land conservation, including some of Maine’s most outstanding efforts, including the St. John River, Katahdin Forest, Machias River and Mount Agamenticus projects. He’ll talk about - and show - a variety of LMF success stories, from the very first purchase at Kennebunk Plains in southern Maine to the more recent, such as Marshall Island in Jericho Bay. And he’ll explain why changes in land ownership throughout the state are placing the very lands we cherish at risk. The concept behind the Land for Maine's Future Program is simple: lands that have exceptional natural or recreational value warrant permanent protection. Since its creation, the Program has assisted in the acquisition of hundreds of thousands of acres, and hundreds of miles of shorefront and trails. All donations will go to support the LMF Program. Seat reservations strongly recommended. Tel. (207) 963-5557

During our summer hiatus enjoy the Schoodic Arts for All Arts Festival from July 30th to August 12th offering a multitude of magnificent events from concerts to workshops. For more info see www.schoodicarts.org or call (207) 963 2569.

August 16th, 7:30 p.m. Megan Light. New England singer-songwriter Megan Light returns with her fresh new sound every listener needs to hear. Her roots start in a small lobster fishing town in Winter Harbor, Maine. Megan attended college at the University of Southern Maine where she Majored in Music Performance with a concentration in Jazz Voice studies. Although College was imperative for the growth in Megan Light, she felt that her purpose in life was for something much bigger. In fall 2004, she packed up her voice and moved to Nashville, TN. It wasn't long before Megan realized what a natural talent she had in songwriting. She wasn't the only one taking notice. After only two years of writing, she turned on the interest of producers Robert Reynolds (Grammy Award winner from the Mavericks) and Nashville singer-songwriter Jim Reilley(New Dylans). In Spring 2006 they teamed together and recorded Megan's first album "Weightless". This upbeat pop/rock album is radio friendly with a unique sound. Her songs reflect a realism of her life in the music industry, her ups and downs, and all the discoveries she has found along the way. Megan has been compared to the likes of Liz Phair, Nelly Fertado, Coldplay, and Ani Difranco. Not only has Megan sold out shows from her hometown, but she is also creating her place in Nashville drawing a local following playing venues including world famous songwriting home, "The Bluebird". Her acoustic shows are incredibly special as she touches the souls of people from all over the world. You can say this 23 year olds talent is way beyond her age. It is without a doubt that Megan Light has something special that only comes around once and a great while. Megan Light will be available to sign her new album which is due to be released at the end of June at what will no doubt be a very special program. Tickets $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Reservations strongly recommended. Tel: (207) 963-5557.

Thursday, August 23rd, 7:30 p.m. Thomas Urquhart: For the Beauty of the Earth, Birding, Opera and Other Journeys Today, when most personal memoirs involve misery and dysfunction, when the competition is to describe the most disrupted and fragmented existence imaginable, it is exhilarating to encounter a life of modesty, happiness and immeasurable stability thoroughly recounted. Often when we think of nature writers and naturalists we think of the rough-hewn or the rural, rugged outdoor types wrestled into epiphany by the arms of Mother Nature. Thomas Urquhart found a different path. He combines a classical education with a lifelong passion for opera, literature and art. And from his earliest days he has been a devoted, devotedly amateur, naturalist. In For the Beauty of the Earth Urquhart begins with the lives of ancestors—his grandmother, “a patron saint of lost causes” who cherished her signed photo of Robert E. Lee, his Great Aunt Catharine, arrested with Edna St. Vincent Millay while protesting what she considered the judicial murder of Sacco and Vanzetti, and even back to the great 17th-century translator of Rabelais, Sir Thomas Urquhart, who, it is said, died of laughing. From the hills and fields of England – both olde and New – he takes us to Italy for “birding through the Renaissance,” then invites us to the wild landscape of the Camargue in Provence, and the villages of Mali in West Africa. Listed on The Best Book list of the Los Angeles Times that described the work "... Comprehensive and compelling ... The dilemmas that Urquhart so eloquently lays out in For the Beauty of the Earth remain dilemmas. But it is the questioning itself that makes this book genuinely inspiring, questions asked so passionately, so intelligently and in such glorious and accomplished prose that Urquhart convinces us, against all cynicism, that our benighted species is capable of finding the necessary answers, and what’s more, he makes us eager to try.” Through the years, birding has provided Urquhart with his opportunities for travel, his practical education and his passionate place in the natural world. Thomas A. Urquhart (pronounced Erkutt) was the executive director of the Maine Audubon Society from 1988 to 2000. Educated at Oxford University, he has worked for conservation organizations for twenty-five years. He lives with his wife and children in Falmouth, Maine. Seat reservations strongly recommended. Tel: (207) 963-5557.

Thursday, September 6th, 7:30 p.m. Erica Wheeler in concert. Erica is an award-winning songwriter with four critically acclaimed CDs to her credit Her music charted for four weeks in the top ten on Billboard’s Gavin Americana Chart. Touted in the press as the next Mary Chapin Carpenter, Erica writes songs filled with sharply detailed portraits of the American landscape and the lives lived there. All Music Guide noted that her songs “combine the literary sensitivity of New England with the spiritual vision of the American West." Erica’s music ranges in style from contemporary folk to country and bluegrass. Her voice is rich and warm, often conversational in style. Both inspiring and entertaining, she draws upon her experience in the performing arts, combined with her lifelong passion for environmental studies, cultural history and spirituality to provide relevant educational links between her songs and topics which are important in land conservation today. Her unique, compelling, transformative concerts and workshops are designed to foster the emotional connection between people and place, awakening the sense of engagement needed to participate in land stewardship today. Her concerts provide songs and stories that resonate with her listeners, evoking their own sense of relationship to place. Her hands-on workshop “The Soulful Landscape” provides opportunities for individuals to access, articulate and express their own stories of connection to place. Her work has received much critical acclaim, "Insightful, imaginative songs...her imagery can nail down relationships in a single verse." The Washington Post "Her voice and lyrics are beautifully expressive....a Major Talent." The Boston Herald "Too often in contemporary folk music, there's a sense of infused self importance that can make it abrasive, frightfully unapologetic and difficult to endear. But when Wheeler sings, she does so as much for her audience or the listener at home as she does for herself. And there's no doubt that what she has to say is imaginative and valuable. Each song comes across as more a gift from Wheeler to you than as some trophy with a killer hook that another artist might thrust in your face as some testament to his or her greatness. Wheeler's songs don't need the extra attention because they are some of the best you've heard right out of the gate. While folksingers are quickly becoming a dime a dozen and music writers exhaust the world's supply of adjectives to describe them, Erica Wheeler is busy painting her wings and inventing new reasons for the rest of us to turn our ears towards something beautiful, subtle and extraordinarily insightful. Just listen" Albuquerque Weekly Alibi. Come experience a wonderful evening of Erica's music. Tickets $10 in advance $12 at the door. Reservations strongly recommended Tel: (207) 963-5557

Thursday, September 13th, 7:30 p.m. Cynthia Simonds author of Fresh Maine Salads and Superb Maine Soups - two great books published by Down East Press, will be treating us to a demonstration of her culinary expertise, come ready to add some new tricks to your own repertoire of favorite dishes. Cynthia's innovative, delicious salad go way beyond vegetables and way beyond being mere side dishes! Cynthia Simonds shows us how to think of salads as the feature of a meal. For example, a scrumptious salad, combined with fresh bagels or bread topped by one of Cynthia's savory spreads, makes a superb brunch. Her book Fresh Maine Salads includes recipes for delicious dressings and garnishes as well as the salads themselves, and one of the appendixes lists sources for many of the ingredients. Cynthia's books have received rave reviews "Simonds's writing style is warm and descriptive, a bit like having ... a favorite chef on hand giving hints and guiding the reader through the recipe." The Free Press, Rockland, Maine; "A wonderful Maine cookbook.... Inventive ... tasty recipes." --Harpswell Anchor, Harpswell, Maine. Cynthia Simonds a self described "foodie" from an early age, she turned her passion into an avocation by starting a catering business to pay for college tuition, but really she cooks for just the joy of it. From her home base in Newcastle, Maine, she also operates her custom fiber design business, Simonds Originals, and directs the Positive Matters Foundation. Admission is free with 100% of all donations going to support The Positive Matters Foundation's Holiday Wishes Program that purchases gifts for children in Maine. Seat reservations strongly recommended. Tel. (207) 963-5557

Oceanside Meadows Innstitute 2007 Concert and Lecture Schedule

Oceanside Meadows Innstitute
2007 Concert and Lecture Schedule