Music & Word

The NEK Council on Aging invites the public to a special performance of music and word in passionate relationship, a collaboration between the art forms of music and poetry that blurs the boundaries between sound and word. Through the resonance of piano and harp strings, a range of emotional expression will be revealed as music is lifted up into the breath of word only to collapse once again into its essence - pure reverberating sound.

Poet Judith Janoo, and harpist and pianist, Linda Schneck will collaborate to present an afternoon performance on Sunday, February 16th from 2 – 4 p.m. at the Peacham Congregational Church. Light refreshments will be provided following the performance and there is a suggested donation of $10 per person. The event is sponsored by NEKOnline, a website and branding company located in Lyndonville, VT. All proceeds are to benefit the NEK Council on Aging.

“We were grateful to our friend Louise Rader for sharing the idea to have Judith and Linda perform together,” said Meg Burmeister, Executive Director for the NEK Council on Aging. “We are thrilled to hear from two very talented artists. Judith’s poetry and Linda’s musical accompaniment will take us on a journey from despair, caused by war, into the hope for peace.”

The music repertoire includes compositions by several classical and contemporary artists such as Chopin, Brahms, Paul Simon, and Linda Schneck. “When music becomes the medium through which the poetry is revealed, a deepened intimacy is expressed as word becomes pure sound and sound coalesces into the meaning of the word,” said Schneck.

Judith Janoo won the Soul-Making Keats Award, the Vermont Award for Continued Excellence in Writing, and the Anita McAndrews Award for human rights poetry. She was a finalist for the Dana Award and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poetry has appeared in The Fish Anthology, The Pedestal, The Main Street Rag, Evening Street Review, Euphony, Kind of a Hurricane Press, The Mountain Troubadour, and Vermont Magazine . Her chapbook, " After Effects ," was published by Finished Line Press in 2019.

Linda Schneck is a harpist and pianist, educator, and composer. She studied piano performance at Temple University in Philadelphia with Alexander Fiorillo, as well as harp and composition studies with Therese Schroeder-Sheker, founder of the field of Music-Thanatology. She held a position as harp faculty at the school of Music-Thanatology in Missoula, Montana. She holds a Master’s Degree in Health Arts and Science from Goddard College and has served as an adjunct professor at Burlington College and Lyndon State College. She has taught a variety of college level courses and intensive residencies in music, healing, and thanatology. Her CD recording, Transforming Light: Harp and Honeybees-Spirit and Earth integrates the sounds of nature with the intimate resonance of the harp. As a pianist and harpist, she has performed as soloist as well as an instrumentalist within chamber music ensembles.