NEW BEDFORD – The Committee to Restore the Seamen’s Bethel will host the final program in its three-concert series at 3 p.m. April 3.
In cooperation with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, Héloïse Degrugillier, recorder, and Paul Cienniwa, harpsichord, will perform a concert of 17th- and 18th-century French baroque music to welcome spring. The New Bedford Port Society and its Ladies’ Branch are presenting the concerts to raise funds for urgently needed repairs to the historic house of worship.
A tea will follow, with the national park’s “Ruth” and “Abby,” who portray 19th-century whaler’s wives, serving as hostesses.
Degrugillier has worked extensively as both a recorder performer and teacher throughout Europe and the United States. She has performed with leading period ensembles, including the Boston Early Music Festival Opera, Newport Baroque, Harmonious Blacksmith, and the Dunya Ensemble. She also enjoys an active teaching career, working with the Amherst Early Music Festival, Boston Recorder Society, Recorder Guild of New York, Pinewoods Early Music Week, and others. She recently completed her studies in the Alexander Technique and has a Master’s in Music from the Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands. She studied recorder with Heiko ter Scheggett, Saskia Coolen, and Pedro Memelsdorff.
Cienniwa's harpsichord playing has been called "expert" (Boston EDGE), and the Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote that "not everyone can capture the Baroque French style as Cienniwa does." In recent years, he has appeared at Harvard, MIT, Yale, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, with renowned violinist Rachel Barton Pine and with Grammy Award-winning uilleann piper Jerry O'Sullivan. An advocate of new music, he has premiered harpsichord works by Larry Thomas Bell and choral works by Karl Henning. As conductor, he leads Sine Nomine choral ensemble and the choruses at Framingham State College and Mount Ida College. As organist and conductor, he is music director at First Church in Boston, where he can be heard weekly on WERS (88.9 FM) Boston.
The 1831 Seamen’s Bethel, renowned as the Whalemen’s Chapel in Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” is suffering from water and insect damage, and costly rehabilitation is required. Thanks to the sponsorship of Isaksen Fishing Corp., New Bedford Ship Supply and the Ladies’ Branch., 100 percent of the proceeds will go to the restoration fund.Tickets, priced at $20 each, are available online at http://seamensbethel.eventbrite.com, from EURO/Phoenix in Fairhaven, Baker Books in Dartmouth, or from Peter Haley, director of the Seamen’s Bethel and Mariners’ Home, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays by calling (508) 992-3295.
All tax-deductible donations for the project are welcome. Checks can be made out to the Port Society, 15 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford, MA 02740 and marked Building Restoration Fund. For more information, visit www.portsociety.org or call (508) 992-3295.