By exploring the connection between music and storytelling at the heart of folk traditions, the Boston-based Rasa String Quartet delivers engaging and accessible programs that showcase works from a variety of cultures and highlight unknown composers. They seek to educate their audiences by contextualizing the genres, styles, and composers they present, inviting their listeners to approach both familiar and unfamiliar sounds with an open and curious mind. Purchase your tickets here.

Our major undertaking of the year—Mozart’s Requiem with a large Festival Chorus, four soloists and a professional orchestra of 18 players from all over the East coast, anchored by the Newport String Quartet. Every movement of this powerful masterpiece seems so right for this moment in time. The Newport String Quartet will also accompany the Norway Pond Festival Singers in Eric Whitacre’s beautiful Five Hebrew Love Songs. You can purchase tickets here.

Our next series concert in our collaboration with the New England Conservatory of Music NEC) features two concert pianists at once: the four-hands artistry of Pualina Lim and Cynthia Tseng. Pualina is a rising star from Singapore. As piano soloist, she has performed with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra as a President’s Young Performer, as well as the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra. Cynthia Tseng has participated in the Summer Academy of the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Collaborative Piano Institute in Louisiana, and Bowdoin Music Festival in Maine. Click here to purchase tickets.

What would the holiday season be without Caroling on the Common? Our annual outdoor festival of holiday carols is held on the Hancock Common just across from the Hancock Meetinghouse. The caroling is free (donations are always welcome). We’ll provide carol booklets, and once again be led by professional trumpeters. Bring a candle! Join the guest list here.

Our annual Noel on Norway Pond concert will showcase the “Anything Goes Trio” with vocalist Jazimina MacNeil, violinist Marjorie Gere, and pianist Dan Sedgwick, and featuring our own Norway Pond Festival Singers and the youngsters of Jr. Mints. Purchase tickets here.

Music on Norway Pond’s Jr. Mints rehearse in the Hancock Meetinghouse on Tuesdays from 4 – 5:30 starting September 26. Do you – or your kids – or your grandkids want to sing and perform and have a lot of fun? Contact Jody Hill Simpson at jhspals@aol.com

The Norway Pond Festival Singers women’s vocal ensemble will begin rehearsals on Thursday, September 21 from 12:15-1:45 in the Hancock Meeting House. Celebrating their sixteenth season, they will rehearse for the annual Noel on Norway Pond Hancock Family Holiday Concert on December 16th. Conducted by Jody Hill Simpson with Mary Ann Fleming at the piano, the group sings varied repertoire reflecting the spirit of the season. In January, tenors and basses join to prepare for Mozart’s Requiem on February 18, 2024. Contact Jody Hill Simpson to sign up. Jhspals@aol.com or 525-9303.

Come join the singing and the fun in this outdoor sing-along style concert event honoring the iconic legend Pete Seeger, champion of American folk music, community and social justice. Bruce Springsteen once introduced him as “a living archive of America’s music and conscience, a testament to the power of song and culture to nudge history along.” Along with Ethan McBrien, singer, song-writer, guitarist and member of the band “Party of the Sun,” the young singers of Jr. Mints will lead the song fest of Seeger’s hits, which include “If I Had a Hammer” and “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.”

It’s April - time for spring flowers to pop, and for the Music on Norway Pond gathering of supporters for our annual benefit concert, this year featuring singer/songwriter Delfina Cheb from Argentina. Here’s an opportunity to lend your continued support, socialize with fellow music lovers, and hear beautiful music from Delfina. Tickets are $75 each. We’ll gather in a charming new barn right on Hancock’s Norway Pond, with the exact location emailed along with your tickets. Join us for great music, hearty hors d'oeuvres, and drinks!

Our collaboration with New England Conservatory continues with an ensemble from their Klezmer Conservatory Band(KCB). A leading voice in the world of klezmer music and Yiddish song for over 40 years, the KCB continues to thrill audiences all over the world. With a repertoire ranging from Yiddish standards to rousing dance medleys and little-known gems, the KCBs musicians have served as important ambassadors in promoting the universal appeal of Jewish music. As is their frequent custom, an ensemble from the full KCB will regale us in Hancock with lively and inspirational music from the Eastern European Jewish tradition.

Our second NEC-affiliated concert features Trio Gaia, New England Conservatory's graduate piano trio in residence. Formed in 2018, Trio Gaia is dedicated to offering audiences dynamic, personally relevant experiences inside and outside the concert hall. Recently, the trio won first prize at the 2022 WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition as well as prizes in the 2022 Premio Trio di Trieste International Competition, the 2021 Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition, and the 2019 Plowman National Chamber Music Competition. The trio previously served as an Honors Ensemble at the New England Conservatory (NEC).

Our “major” concert of the year. Artistic Director Jody Hill Simpson leads the Norway Pond Festival Singers, joined by tenors, basses, and professional soloists, for Gilbert and Sullivan’s one-act masterpiece Trial by Jury, followed by Ralph Vaughn Williams’ clever cantata In Windsor Forest, which includes a gleeful denunciation of men and their deceitful ways sung by the women, and a boisterous drinking song for the men.

Internationally-acclaimed composer and jazz artist Mehmet Ali Sanlikol brings his trio to Hancock! A Grammy nominated composer and CMES Harvard University fellow (2013-15), Mehmet made his Carnegie Hall debut in April 2016 premiering his commissioned piece Harabat/The Intoxicated with the American Composers Orchestra.

Other recent works by Mehmet have been heard at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall and on A Far Cry string orchestra’s recording Dreams and Prayers. He hails from Cyprus and Turkey, and is DownBeat Magazine’s September 2016 Editor’s pick, JAZZIZ’s Top 10 Critics’ Choice 2014 pick, a jazz pianist, a multi-instrumentalist, a singer, an ethnomusicologist as well as a full-time faculty member at New England Conservatory. He is the recipient of numerous respected awards including The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Grant twice in 2016 and 2020 as well as the New Music USA Project Grant in 2020 and has been praised by critics all over the world for his unique, pluralist, multicultural and energetic musical voice. 

Due to weather, we cancelled on Dec. 17, but we’re back! This concert will be held on Saturday, January 7, at 4:00 p.m. in the Hancock Meetinghouse. Bask in the holiday spirit - with a touch of the Irish - featuring the Celtic band “Waking Finnegan”, together with our own Norway Pond Festival Singers and Jr. Mints.

Join us on Hancock’s Common, across from Hancock Town Hall and the Hancock Church, for a sing-along of holiday favorites. We started this outdoor event during the Covid shutdown when indoor gatherings were not possible, and couldn’t be happier to continue this new tradition. Wear your warm clothes and bring a candle! This event is free, but donations are always welcome. This is a free event, but donations are appreciated!

Come hear baritone Philip Stoddard and collaborative pianist Katelan Tran Terrell in a program of American folk songs called “American Song Set” by composer Stephen Marc Kohn. An award-winning lyric baritone known for his versatile artistry, Philip is a graduate of both The Juilliard School’s Drama Division and Institute for Vocal Arts, holding the distinction of being the only artist in school history to attend two different divisions.

From Brooklyn, NY, musician and storyteller Amos Kwaku Gabia, along with master drummer Raymond Odai Laryea and dancer Nii Tetteh Quarshie, present a program for all ages called “Ekome Feemo” or “Togetherness.” Children and their families will have the opportunity to learn about the traditions of West African drumming and dance through story and song. We’ll sing along to traditional rhythms and songs from Ghana and even play along with the musicians. Grown-ups are only $20 and kids are free, so bring them all – yours, the grandkids, the neighbors, the whole classroom – there’s never been anything like this in these parts!