Category: Latest News

Friday, December 16th at 7 PM
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, North Easton, Mass.

The award-winning Abeo Quartet will perform a concert in North Easton to benefit the Rose Conservatory, a local musical program that transforms the lives of school children in Brockton through high quality musical instruction. The concert will be followed by a reception, and donations will be accepted at the door.

The Abeo Quartet, formed at Juilliard in 2018, is the inaugural Graduate String Quartet in Residence at the University of Delaware, under the mentorship of the Calidore String Quartet. The quartet finished an exciting 2022 summer, participating in the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute, the McGill International String Quartet Academy, and the prestigious Banff International String Quartet Competition.

Rose Conservatory nurtures love of music, transforming the lives of Brockton children after school through low-cost, exceptional musical training. Students learn to read music, play piano, violin, hand chimes, West African drumming, and more. Academic time, tutoring, chess lessons, and daily dinner are also provided.

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church is an Open and Affirming congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We welcome all God’s creatures of every race, ethnicity, heritage, culture, age, gender identity, gender expression, sexual identity, physical or mental ability, socioeconomic status, or where you are on your faith journey. You are embraced by us and God exactly as you are.

An anonymous donor is willing to match member’s donations to the Rose Conservatory up to a thousand dollars. The goal to reach $1000.00 is October 9 – the Sunday on which the Rose Conservatory students will be in worship at HTLC to perform.

Checks should be made out to “Holy Trinity” and please write “Rose Conservatory” on the memo line.  Special envelopes marked “Rose Conservatory” are on the table in the narthex or outside.  You can also put cash in these envelopes.  If you would like credit for the cash donation, please write your name on the envelope, too. 

In the future, on the weeks we sing a spiritual, a red rose will be placed on the altar as a reminder of the challenge grant and envelopes marked “Rose Conservatory” will be available.

About The Rose Conservatory and the Spiritual Royalties Project

Back in the fall of 2021, an organist acquaintance at United Parish in Brookline began a Negro Spiritual Royalties Project at her church.  When the congregation or choir sang spirituals, an amount of money was set aside.  Parishioners were asked to donate on that particular Sunday, with all proceeds going to Hamilton-Garrett Music and Arts Academy in Boston.    

In February 2022, I found out that Covenant Congregational Church in Brockton had adopted this model.  In the Fall of 2021, Rose Conservatory started using their Parish Hall and classrooms every weekday from 3-6:45 PM.  The School Department of Brockton buses 28 children, grades 2-5, to the church, provides them with a dinner and funding for the teachers.  There is an academic component, an hour of music where you can learn African drumming, singing and piano, and a half hour of theory which is learning to read music, rhythms, etc.  Greg Fernandes is the director of the program. 

Greg would like to greatly expand the program in September.  But there won’t be any additional funding from the Brockton School Department to do this.  So he is trying to raise money to provide scholarships for these students.  This fall he is planning to offer string instruments, guitar, etc. 

The United Church of Christ in Norwell and their organist Karen Harvey have already helped by first lending their 3 octaves of Handchimes to the Conservatory and then by surprising Greg and the children  with a 3 octave set of their own Handchimes at the end of their Spring Fling Bell Choir Concert in June.  You can imagine how happy that made Greg and the children!

At Holy Trinity, during the winter, a committee formed to work on this project.  Members are Karen Danielson, Becky and John Paolin, Allison Krajcik and Charlotte Rydberg.  

We invited Greg to our service on Pentecost, June 5^th.  He spoke about his background and how and why he started the Conservatory.  He invited Pastor and members of our committee to come and see it in action in June.  Julie Un, her husband and I went to their final concert, which was terrific!  Since then, Diane Ross found an article in the Bridgewater State University Alumni magazine about Greg and the Conservatory.  You may have seen it on the Music & Arts bulletin board. 

Pastor and I talked about starting this project last fall.  It has evolved slowly but we are ready and eager to finally launch it, going all the way back to when it was first discussed.  Between Advent 2021 and June 12th, we have sung 7 spirituals 18 times because some were new and we repeated them to really learn them. 

–Rita Corey, Director of Music