The afternoon service will feature the two musicians whose artistry and improvisational mastery have earned recognition across the United States and abroad. Jazz Vespers is a contemplative service that blends sacred readings, poetry, and moments of reflection with live jazz performance. Rooted in a long tradition of music-centered worship, the format invites attendees to experience both the spiritual and artistic power of jazz within a sacred space.
Monroe is widely respected for her expressive style and deep connection to the jazz tradition. She has performed with legendary artists including Ray Charles, Harry Belafonte and Grover Washington Jr., and previously served as concertmaster of the historic Newark Symphony Orchestra. Monroe and Miceli have also collaborated on the duo recording Alone Together, highlighting the musical chemistry they will bring to the Jazz Vespers performance.
Joining Monroe is internationally renowned vibraphonist Miceli, who is widely regarded as one of the leading voices on the vibraphone today. A celebrated performer, recording artist, and educator, he has appeared at major jazz festivals across the United States and internationally, including performances in South Korea, Peru, Ireland, and Canada. He is a member of Team Omega, an elite collective of vibraphonists that includes David Friedman, Joe Locke, and Stefon Harris, and serves as an adjunct associate professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia while also teaching at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance
THIS EVENT IS FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC – RESERVE YOUR SEATS: https://JoyfulNoiseJazz.eventbrite.com
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Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023 from 1-3 p.m. — In celebration of Black History Month, the Essence of Harmony Choral Society in collaboration with the Burlington Quaker Meeting House presents “Deep River: A Musical Tribute to the Negro Spiritual.”
This presentation will be an uplifting, soulful expression of the tragedies and triumphs of black history. With roots steeped in African and religious traditions, it was through songs that the enslaved expressed feelings of sorrow, joy, inspiration, and hope. This beautiful musical expression evolved into what is known as negro spirituals. Audiences will be especially moved as they hear and experience the exquisite voices of the Essence of Harmony Choral society in the historic 1784 Burlington Quaker Meeting House.
The Essence of Harmony Choral Society is an ensemble in Southern New Jersey, dedicated to bringing joy and culture to our community by celebrating the voices of diverse cultures and backgrounds by presenting beautiful choral music through high-quality performances.
Founder/Artistic Director/Conductor Cherisse Bonefont is the mind behind the vision. For the past 4 years, she has been the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Community Holiday Choir, at Bethel AME Church Freehold, which includes directing Handel’s Messiah. Cherisse attended Colorado State University as a vocal performance music major, participated in the Summer Choral Festival at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, and was accepted into Chorus America’s Conducting Academy in July 2019. Additionally, she is a member of ACDA (American Choral Director’s Association), Chorus America, Delta Omicron Professional Music Fraternity, and will be joining NANM (National Association of Negro Musicians).
The choir is comprised of dynamic voices, some young and some with years of experience.
Tickets $25
Ad space is available. Contact Dee Corbett at (609) 387-3875.
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Our apologies
These are the old 2020 films, despite the Festival’s website pages all saying 2021. A spokesman told me “we were considering it a soft launch of the virtual side of the film festival …. I’m sorry you’ve had to backtrack with your customers. I hope they understand we are creating and adapting as we go.”
If anyone purchased a ticket and wants a refund, let me know. If you want to watch them, by all means do so. Most of all, if you’ll overlook the debacle and join us in February for the 2021 films, we would be thrilled!
Watch the 2020 Paddling Film Festival online
The 2020 Paddling Film Festival is online. You can watch it anytime, anywhere with a ticket you buy through our link. With each ticket purchased, the festival donates part of the ticket price to us. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations help us generate programming like on-water Penn Paddle trips in 2021.
How to Buy Tickets
Click the green “Get Tickets” button then follow these steps to ensure we a credited for the donation:
3 Packages/Themes to Choose From
There are 3 packages/themes to choose from: adventure, adrenaline and culture. Watch them in the comfort and safety of your home. Watch them when you want to. Rest assured that your ticket generated a donation to a nonprofit. This summer, join us for on-water programming.
Adventure
Adventure—is it calling? Do you want to escape into the world and explore its still secluded rivers or unpaddled seas? To be alone with the water and, perhaps, some close friends or family? These four films will take you to some of the most beautiful places on earth and provide you with all of the inspiration you need for your next paddling trip.
Films:
- Pull of the North (33 min)
- Vitamin Sea (30 min)
- Iceolation (27 min)
- Family Routes (30 min)
Culture
Culture—it is what brings us together. We are rafters, creekers, kayak fishermen and big-wave surfers. We are paddleboarders, whitewater canoeists, and canoe trippers. From all around the world and all walks of life, we share our special love for moving across lakes, rivers, and oceans under our own power. These nine films tell the stories of paddlers and all that paddling can mean to us.
Films:
- The Salad Days (12 min)
- (People) of Water (22 min)
- Dagger Presents: Women of Whitewater (4 min)
- Broken Body of Water (17 min)
- Balkan Rivers Tour 4 | Action for Wild Rivers (4 min)
- The Great Route (10 min)
- Banking on Bailey (10 min)
- Lawai’a, A Family Fishing Fable (6 min)
- The Long River Home (19 min)
Adrenaline
Adrenaline—is that what gets you out on the water? The stomach-churning thrill of dropping onto a big wave or committing to a big line, of paddling into the unknown in the remote wilderness? These five films celebrate great rivers and oceans, life-defining moments, people who know what it really means to be alive, because they are not held back by fear.
Films:
- A Kayaker’s Solo Adventure in India | With Nouria Newman (12 min)
- Skooks (6 min)
- Svaha (28 min)
- The Rio Caqueta (25 min)
- Can’t Ski Vegas (11 min)
October 1, 2020 — November 30, 2020. You can experience John Woolman’s 1763, 200 mi. peacemaking walk to Wyalusing, Pa. by participating in our virtual Walk to Wyalusing, a fundraiser for us and the John Woolman Memorial.
In June 1763, John Woolman journeyed 200 miles from Mt. Holly in (then) West (New) Jersey on a peacemaking visit to (now) Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, a native American village along the Susquehanna River where Papoonhank was Chief of the Munsee tribe of Delaware.
You can experience Woolman’s walk by walking almost that distance around your neighborhood and hearing from 3 speakers on the subject present live online.
Sign up, walk in your neighborhood, post your mileage online between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, cross any of the finish lines (Woolman’s encampments), and receive a t-shirt. Tune in for any or all of the 3 Zoom Webinars and learn about the climate of colonization at the time from multiple perspectives.
The first presentation is next Thursday, October 8th at 7:30 p.m.
The Man
John Woolman was a Quaker minister, writer, teacher, surveyor and tailor from West Jersey. He is best known for his lifelong action to end slavery, and for his Journal, which has been continuously in print since its first publication in 1774. The Journal, has been translated into over 50 languages, and continues to inspire readers throughout the world to bring injustices to light when they are not widely recognized, and to act on their consciences. The John Woolman Memorial is at 99 Branch St., Mt. Holly, NJ. It is listed in the NJ Register of Historic Places.
Woolman wrote,
“Having many Years felt Love in my Heart towards the Natives of this Land, who dwell far back in the Wilderness, whose Ancestors were the Owners and Possessors of the Land where we dwell; and who, for a very small Consideration, assigned their Inheritance to us….”
You can read John Woolman’s journal in print here https://quakerbooks.org/search?q=woolman+journal or online here http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37311.
His Cause
“Love was the first Motion, and thence a Concern arose to spend some Time with the Indians, that I might feel and understand their Life, and the Spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some Instruction from them, or they be in any Degree helped forward by my following the Leadings of Truth amongst them”
Two years before his journey, Woolman was in Philadelphia on a visit to some Friends who had slaves, to convince them to free the slaves. There he met a trading party of Native Americans from Wyalusing and that “…in conversation with them by an interpreter, as also by observations on their countenance and conduct, I believed some of them were measurably acquainted with that divine power which subjects the rough and froward will of creature; and at times I felt inward drawings toward a visit to that place,….”
Our Cause
This virtual race was conceived by the Burlington Quaker Meeting House and Center for Conference (BMH) in Burlington City and is a fundraiser for both it and the John Woolman Memorial in Mount Holly, NJ. Both are run by 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.
BMH was the first site of the Quakers’ Yearly Meeting in the U.S. and is the resting spot of Lenape Chief Ockanickon, one of 8 chiefs from whom the Quakers bought the land in 1676. Today, the 1783 brick Meeting House is used for Quaker Meeting for Worship, interfaith worship, and worship by other faiths as well as for wedding ceremonies for Quakers, other faiths and same-sex couples. The 1995 Center for Conference is used for both day and overnight gatherings. Because it was built for Quaker youth and family retreats, it includes a hall, commercial kitchen, seminar room, Youth Recreation Room and dormitory of 88 twin-sized beds.
The John Woolman Memorial is a 1783 brick house on property once owned by John Woolman’s daughter, Mary Comfort and a wood frame house relocated to the property and believed to have once been a home of John Woolman. The Memorial serves to share the spirit, vision, integrity and writings of John Woolman In 2018, it was added to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places.
His Team
Woolman was joined by his friend Benjamin Parvin and they travelled to Wyalusing as companions to four Native Americans who were from beyond there, one man and three women, whom Woolman had met one month earlier while they were in Philadelphia on business.
Your Team
If you would like to make a Team of your Meeting, neighborhood or walking buddies, email BMH Director Cie Stroud a group name before signing up the first participant.
Our Team
There will be 3 webinars held during the Walk about the Walk. Participants will have a pass to see them. Others will need to pay-per-view. Speakers include:
Jack Thomas Johnson – Thursday, October 8th at 7:30 p.m. – enrolled member of the Delaware Nation. Born in Oklahoma and now a Philadelphia resident. Jack will give an overview of Native Culture as it existed prior to and early on during the Quaker migration to South Jersey.
Dr. Jean R. Soderlund – Thursday, October 29th at 7:30 p.m. – Dr. Soderlund is a professor of history emeritus at Lehigh University whose most recent book Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society before William Penn (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) won the Philip S. Klein Book Prize from the Pennsylvania Historical Association. She has published numerous articles and books on the history of women, African Americans, Native Americans, and Quakers in early Pennsylvania and New Jersey including Quakers and Slavery: A Divided Spirit (Princeton University Press, 1985). Her current book project, “Witnesses of Colonization: Liberty and Death in Early New Jersey,” is a social history of West New Jersey focusing on personal and political interaction among Lenapes, African Americans, and European colonists.
Dr. Soderlund will present “Seeds of Great Calamity”: English Colonization in Lenape Country” — about Quaker attempts to rightfully possess Native lands, at least as the Quakers were able to see it, contrasted with Native perceptions of that activity.
Carol Walz – Thursday, November 19th at 7 p.m. – Carol and her husband Jack Walz served as co-directors of the John Woolman Memorial from 1993 to 2016. She recently retired as Director of Grant Making for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting after 24 years where she says she was “blessed to work every day with individuals whose lives, projects and institutions sought to make the world a better place.” Carol is a lifelong Quaker and current member of Mount Holly Friends Meeting in New Jersey. Carol will speak about Woolman’s hopes for and reflections on the Walk.
Read about how a webinar works and register for it here: https://burlmhcc.org/walk-to-wyalusing-webinar-sign-up/
(Virtual) Start Line
The John Woolman Memorial, 99 Branch St., Mt. Holly, NJ
Virtual Finish Lines
It took Woolman just 11 days, the 6th to 17th of June 1763, to reach Wyalusing.
You can walk all or part of his journey to Wyalusing between October1 and December 31.
The finish lines are places that the group visited or where they spent the night:
- 8 miles Burlington City, N.J. Where Woolman attends Burlington Meeting and afterwards crosses the Delaware River
- 5 miles Quakertown/Richland Twp., Pa. Home of Samual Foulk where Benjamin Parvin joins Woolman and they join the four Native Americans
- 5 miles Bethlehem, Pa.
- 79 miles (Then Fort Allen) Weissport, Pa.
- 113 miles Wyoming, Pa.
- 150 miles Wyalusing, Pa., as the crow flies
- 200 miles Wyalusing, Pa., having walked it as a winding path as Woolman did
Share
RSVP Going to the Facebook Event https://fb.me/e/fXZzUDoVl
Join the Facebook Group to stay informed https://www.facebook.com/groups/359902891826523
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