God Rest Ye Merry Persons
December 26, 2011This morning on the radio and TV
On Friday morning in my email there was a note from Loren Fields, music teacher from Lawrence Jr/Sr High School in Fairfield. He sent out an announcement that The Downeast Brass Quintet was performing this morning on WLOB radio. Luckily, as the snow falls this morning I was able to hear them perform “God Rest Ye Merry Persons”.
Other members of the Downeast Brass are music teachers as well and they include:
The other Downeast Brass musicians are:
- Dwight Tibbetts who teaches grades 5-12 in Augusta
- Andy Forster who teaches at Messalonskee High School in Oakland
- Mike Peterson who teaches in Messalonskee Middle School in Oakland
- Mark Mumme who teaches at Noble High School in North Berwick (absent that day, Scott Vaillancourt from Lewiston filling in for him)
They sounded like they were having a great time! Loren sent me the photo below of them and others who were joining the show that morning.
In a follow up email Loren said:
We all agree that we are blessed to be music educators and benefit from the enriching experience of music. We benefit from the musically
satisfying nature of our profession, i.e. we teach great kids before,
during and after the school day, perform professionally after school
hours, and come back artistically charged up to share music with our
students again…it is a deeply gratifying cycle that we all (students
and instructors) are enriched by. I suspect those of us in the VPA
profession and avocation must have it over those in other careers who
work strictly on the job but do not take things to a higher, nourishing
level outside the job. We in the VPA “have it wicked good”.
me arts ed 
Thank you for the post, Argy. I always enjoy the Downeast Brass Quintet! Loren is quite right about teachers in the Visual and Performing Arts: we do have the best of both worlds… the full circle of performance/recharge/sharing our Arts with others/giving it out again/ etc. etc.
Thank you for keeping us up-to-date with Fine Arts in Maine 😉
All best wishes for the New Year, to all Arts People! Iris (music, “ret.”)
Thank you for your comment Iris! I know 2012 will bring many arts opportunities for students and arts educators! Thanks for your continuing good work and Happy New Year!