Sears Family Performance Featuring Grace Church’s 1833 Erben Organ, August 3
What: Music for organ, violin, and viola performed by David Sears, Permelia Sears, and Rebecca Sears
When: Friday, August 3 at 7:00 PM
Where: Grace Episcopal Church, 215 Pleasant Street, Sheldon, VT 05483
For more information contact Beth Crane at (802) 326-4603.
SHELDON, VERMONT – Join us Friday, August 3, for a special performance featuring Grace Church’s 1833 Erben Organ. The program includes music from a wide range of composers of the 17th-21st centuries, from Boyvin and Pachelbel to Foote and Sears. David Sears has arranged several pieces with viola and violin acompaniment.
David Sears holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and a Doctorate in Musical Arts from Boston University. He is Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at Merrimack College and is also a composer. With his wife, Permelia, he was Co-chairman of the Extant Organs Committee of the Organ Historical Society. Dr. Sears has appeared in concert throughout New England as a soloist, with his wife in piano four-hand recitals, and with his wife and daughter in family concerts.
Permelia Sears is a graduate of Smith College and the Yale University School of Music and holds a Master of Music degree in Pipe Organ Performance. She is a past Dean of the Merrimack Valley (Massachusetts) Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and has taught organ and piano through the Indian Hill Music Center in Littleton, MA. Mrs. Sears has performed solo organ recitals across New England, played at several Organ Historical Society Conventions as well as in family concerts with her husband and daughter.
Rebecca Sears graduated from Bowdoin College with a double major in Music and Classics. In August 2012 she received her Doctoral degree in Classical Languages from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is a Lecturer in the Department of Classics at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Dr. Sears has played violin with the Lowell Philharmonic and Arlington Philharmonic in Massachusetts, the Mid-Coast Orchestra in Maine, the Wake Forest University Orchestra, and the New Orleans Civic Symphony, as well as in family concerts.
The 1833 Erben Organ, one of few original pipe organs of its era, was installed at St. Paul’s Church (now the Cathedral Church of St. Paul) in Burlington until 1869, when it was relocated to Grace Church in Sheldon. A major restoration project completed in 2000 brought the Erben back into repair. It has been recognized as a National Heritage Organ and designated a Landmark of American Organbuilding by the Organ Historical Society by virtue of its status as the oldest extant intact organ built by the Erben Organ Company.
Admission to the August 3 event is by donation. Proceeds from this concert benefit the Sheldon Food Shelf. We are very grateful to the Sears family for their generosity.
Grace Church is wheelchair accessible and open to all.
Next in our series
Friday, September 14: Va et Vient