To the Editor:

The Norwood Village Green Concert Series concluded its 51st annual season of 18 events with a performance of the Norwood Brass Firemen on Thursday, August 8th. The series season traditionally ends with this concert. Then on Tuesday, August 13th the series hosted a performance of New Horizons Swing Band under the direction Paul Buehl. While not part of the regular season the performance was welcomed enthusiastically by the series audience. On Wednesday August 14 the series crew consisting of Brendan Bombard, Joshua Jarvis, Sara Miller, Brooke Goddard, Dillon Troy and intern Holly Goddard cleared the band shell of the series’ equipment and organized its storage until next spring.

Kudos to the following: The series has employed more than 100 high school and college students to be technical assistants over the years and in most cases provided these students with their first employment opportunities. The series is grateful and appreciative of their services and this year’s crew. It is also appreciative of the service the Norwood Kiwanis club provided with its concession stand, for the Lobster House donating meals for the touring performers, and the Potsdam Subway for providing meals for the series crew throughout the season.

Another contributing factor to the series continuing success is the availability of Norwood-Norfolk facilities the series can call upon for a rain site. The school administration also helped the series identify a custodian to assist when needed. The series directly communicated with the employee and paid him for his time. He was invaluable for the 2 times needed – Northern Symphonic Winds and the Korean artist Seo Jungmin and her accompanying musicians. This challenging concert needed verbal interpretation and that was provided by Korean native and Ogdensburg resident Youmi Guilbert. The Norwood-Norfolk auditorium sound system was utilized to its best advantage when Rob Zolner working hand-in-hand with Seo Jungmin’s tech person was able to negotiate both the system and the language differences.

The series technical director Andy Van Duyne was not available for the 2 rain site performances but provided professional and effective tech services for all other events. Andy Van Duyne will be continuing his tech services into 2025 and beyond. That will be invaluable as the series advances into 2025.

Andy Van Duyne has been the technical director for all of the series 31 Grammy award recipients. In 2024 he was the tech director for Grammy award winners Michael Cleveland and Jay Ashby. The series had to cancel 2 time Grammy winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer who were scheduled to appear with Chinese Dulcimer player Chao Tian.  Upon returning from Italy on the Monday before their time with the students of Norwood-Norfolk and their concert in the Norwood Village Green it was discovered they had covid and were unable to honor this commitment. The series has a long history providing workshops and concerts for NNCS students so this cancellation was disappointing.

The series will continue this relationship when in 2025 it presents the 2024 Grammy award winning husband/wife duo of Christina Sanabria and Andrés Salguero from Colombia known as Andrés 123.  They won the Grammy Award in 2024 for Best Children’s Music Recording “We Grow Together – Pre School Songs”. 

Here are some observations about some, but not all of our concerts.

About the Michael Cleveland concert: Grammy Award winner Michael Cleveland is the series 5th National Heritage Award recipient. This concert ranked as one of the series’ best presentations ever. It was remarkable in every aspect. Here is a quote from local fiddle master Gretchen Koehler. “I laughed, I cried, I cheered, sometimes all at once. Whoo hoo! What a night! Thank you Joe Liotta for bringing this legend to our little corner of the North Country”.

About the Gibson Brothers concert: They always deliver for the series audiences. This year their guest was the Grammy Award winning mandolinist Frank Solivan who also wowed the audience with his playing and his singing.

About Jay Ashby, Ian Ashby, Kim Nazarian and the All Star Big Band under the direction of Wally Siebel: Jay Ashby was a recipient of 5 Grammys for his arrangements some of which were used in this concert. The superb performance skills of 19 musicians and the organizing skills of Wally Siebel were in full bloom as the musically demanding concert was given without a hitch.

About Norwoodstock: Andy Van Duyne’s organizational and tech skills along with the donated skills of nearly 2 dozen local musicians gave the community an enjoyable experience and raised $1450 for the Norwood-Norfolk-Raymondville Outreach program. A special thanks to Northbound is in order.

About Pasquala ILabaca and Fauna: The concert was excellent and the workshop the following evening was stellar. At the same time Pasquala and Fauna was performing in Norwood, she was featured on a billboard in Times Square sponsored by the Chilean government.

About the Shimul Zaman and Clove and Chai of Bangladesh concert: With 4 accompanying musicians and 3 dancers this concert captured the culture of Bangladesh and was given during the country’s political upheaval which seems to have now subsided. The growing north country Bangladesh/India community was out in full force.

The series was supported by major grants from the National Endowment for the Arts through the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Iber Musicas, the Corning Foundation, the Sweetgrass Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the NYS legislature and the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, the Town of Potsdam, and the Village of Norwood.

In addition more than $9000 was raised by the Pass the Bucket program and more than $23,000 was raised by individuals, businesses, and organizations. All financial goals were met.

Of further note: The series is still in transition. It is experiencing a leadership change. To that effect Amanda Mason began grant writing and handled publicity while Holland Goddard as intern began to perform a myriad of duties.

Finally the handicap/all purpose ramp was completed. 

Joseph Liotta
president of the Norwood Village Green Concert Series.