The Eventide Singers, a group of volunteers who offer songs of hope and comfort for the ill, homebound, dying, their families and others who may benefit from music, will perform an annual concert Sunday at 3 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 43 Silver St. in Greenfield.
Music Director Joe Toritto of Greenfield has put together an eclectic program of 19 songs illustrating the wide range of music in the Eventide Singers’ repertoire, which includes about 80 songs in all. The songs go from mellow to upbeat, Toritto said, and are sang in multiple languages.
“There are lullaby-like (songs that) kind of ease people through the threshold and beyond, so there’s a mellow flavor to the concert,” Toritto began, “but there’s also some upbeat songs with audience participation.”
Songs include a version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” which Toritto said the Eventide Singers have modified to accommodate a hospice context, as well as Hebrew pieces “Bakesh Shalom” and “Durme, Durme,” and the Latin piece “Panis Angelicus,” to name a few.
The final two songs are performed at every concert, Toritto said, with this being the 11th annual. One involves “surrounding the congregation with our bodies and music,” he explained.
“The audience gets a flavor of what it’s like to be surrounded by a cappella voices,” he added. “It’s often very moving.”
The annual concert will also feature two speakers who will talk about their experiences having the choir sing for their loved ones.
“It’s been a home run for years,” Toritto said of having speakers. “They speak really from the heart. They’re talking about their loved one who passed away and how our ministry, our singers, helped them.”
Toritto said the hospice choir currently has 25 members from across Franklin and Hampshire counties, as well as from Brattleboro, Vt. Requests for the Eventide Singers’ free bedside and home singing services have grown steadily over the past 11 years.
In 2018, the Eventide Singers sang at 94 engagements, comforting the sick and homebound. Besides private sings, the Eventide Singers provide music at Amherst’s Hospice of the Fisher Home; at Greenfield’s Buckley HealthCare Center, Charlene Manor, The Arbors, Franklin Adult Day Health Center and Poet’s Seat Health Care Center; the Farren Care Center in Turners Falls; and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds.
This year has been particularly significant for the Eventide Singers, Toritto said, as the choir sang for two of its own singers who recently died.
The two singers were Judith Kinley of Brattleboro, Vt., who was formerly a pastor at the First Congregational Church in Greenfield, and Marilyn Berthelette of Greenfield, who sang soprano with the Eventide Singers and was also an accomplished choral director and organist. Toritto said the Eventide Singers plan to sing “Abide With Me” in Berthelette’s honor at the March 30 concert.
The music will be followed by social time and free food, Toritto said. The suggested donation to attend the concert is $12 to $15.
While it is both entertaining and raises money for the First Congregational Church of Greenfield as a way of thanking the church for hosting the Eventide Singers’ twice-monthly rehearsals, Toritto said the annual benefits also serve as a way of raising awareness about the hospice choir.
“When someone is dying, you don’t think of calling up a choir to have them sing. It’s not on people’s radar,” he began. But after attending the annual benefit concert, attendees “may think of us when the time comes for their loved ones.”