SLR Therapeutic Community Presents Bob & Louise DeCormier
Spring Lake Ranch Therapeutic Community is hosting Robert & Louise DeCormier in a benefit concert to support the Sarcka Scholarship Fund. Sunday August 1st at 4pm at the Northam Community Church on the Cold River Road in Shrewsbury. Tickets are available the door: $10 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under. Join us for refreshments on the porch of Pierce’s store across the street after the concert.
Robert & Louise DeCormier will share 60 Years of Song in 60 Minutes.
Robert DeCormier acted as music director of the New York Choral Society for seventeen years, and under his leadership the group became renowned for its high standard of excellence in choral singing and unique variety of programming. He spent many years as conductor and arranger for Harry Belafonte and was music director for the popular folk trio, Peter, Paul and Mary.
In 1993, he helped found the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus, and as their director, he 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. Mr. DeCormier has also arranged extensively, from African-American spirituals to American and international folk songs.
In this rare appearance with his wife Louise, you will enjoy an intimate program of songs from many lands.
“We have been singing together since 1950 and although the voices may not be as steady as they once were, the sentiments they express remain unchanged.
The songs we sing come from many lands and cultures, some of them handed down in the oral folk tradition, some of them composed. While we were working on this program we discovered that it was largely made up of songs about love in one form or another. And why not? As the 1960’s song goes, 'What the world needs now is love sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.'
We hope you will do some singing of your own —whether in the privacy of the shower, in a chorus, on stage or in your living room. As the early English composer William Byrd said, “It doth strengthen all parts of the breast and doth open the pipes. It is delightful to Nature and good to preserve the health of Man. Since singing is so good a thing, I wish all men (and women) would learn to sing.”