November 17, 2024
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Performance by Arlo Guthrie to benefit PICA

BANGOR – Legendary folk singer Arlo Guthrie will make a live appearance July 11 on the waterfront, in tribute to one of the great influences of his life, Pete Seeger.

The 7 p.m. concert, a benefit for PICA, Peace through Interamerican Community Action, is titled “A Concert for Our Future.”

From “City of New Orleans” to “Alice’s Restaurant,” Guthrie has had a four-decade career taking him from the Newport Folk Festival to around the world.

The concert will include his performance of the Pete Seeger song, “Take it from Doctor King,” on the message of the late Rev. Martin Luther King.

As Seeger has sung to encourage the struggles for peace and justice, organizers explained, Guthrie will stand with children from Maine and around the world calling for community across borders in a post-Sept. 11 world.

In addition, the concert also will feature Inca Son, the well-known Andean music group; and Linda Richards, Seeger’s performance partner of 20 years.

Pre-concert festivities, to be held 4-7 p.m., include children’s workshops on the “global village” and the Clean Clothes Marketplace.

Children from Eastern Maine and the Children’s International Summer Village in Maine – where more than four dozen 11-year-old children from South America, North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand live together for a month this summer – will perform the song and teach it to adults in the audience as a singalong.

“The concert is designed to encourage community building between people of different cultural, ethnic, and social backgrounds and to hear the voices of our youth in our struggle for justice and racial equality,” said concert coordinator Deborah Brooks, Passamaquoddy Indian and member of PICA.

Brooks said it was wonderful to have a noted performer with Guthrie’s interest in justice and bringing a voice to people without a voice, come to Bangor and help carry the message of the youth of the area.

“We are working with a very diverse group of performers to make this concert a community event that will make us all stronger and more respectful of differences among us,” Brooks said.

Pre-concert festivities, 4-7 p.m., include a children’s workshop on the “global village” with David Smith, creator of the award-winning curriculum “Mapping the World by Heart.”

Smith is also author of “If the World Were a Village: A Book About the World’s People.” He believes that teaching children “world-mindedness” is vital to the well-being of this planet.

Also performing 4-7 p.m. will be juggler Zachary Field, American Indian flutist Hawk Henries, a Wabanaki youth drum group, Ousman Jobarteh with West African music, and the Community Health and Counseling Services chorus.

Open the same period will be the fourth annual Clean Clothes Market Place with retailers and artisans selling products made with dignity and care. Wabanaki basket makers will be featured. Participating clothing retailers are members of PICA’s Bangor Clean Clothes Campaign, a national model community partnership to end sweatshops in the global clothing industry.

PICA is a Bangor-area membership-base nonprofit organization working toward supportive communities and social and economic justice locally and across borders.

PICA’s programs include the Bangor Clean Clothes Campaign, the Bangor-El Salvador Sister City Project, and Youth Adelantando.

For more information, please visit or call 947-4203.

Tickets for the event are $15 adults, $10 seniors and students, $5 children, under 5 free.

Tickets are available: in Bangor, PICA office, The Grasshopper Shop, The Briar Patch; Bar Harbor, Cadillac Mountain Sports; Ellsworth: Cadillac Mountain Sports; and at Bull Moose Music stores throughout the state.

Tickets also are available through mail order from PICA. Send self-addressed stamped envelope with a check made payment to PICA, 170 Park St., Bangor 04401. For information about sponsored tickets, call Deborah Brooks: 942-1524 or 947-4203.

Concert sponsors are the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, the Phenix Inn and WERU Community Radio.

For information about PICA programs, contact PICA, 170 Park St., Bangor 04401; 947-4203; e-mail info@pica.ws; Web site www.pica.ws.


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