Civil War Word and Music at the Arkell Museum

Artists Wanda Burch and John Kenosian will perform concert at The Arkell Museum, Friday evening, November 10, at 7 pm.

Home Voices: the American Civil War Experience through Words and Music will feature guest artist, soprano Gisella Montanez-Case Wanda Burch, historian and writer, Glen, NY, and singer/songwriter John Kenosian, Clifton Park.

Providing perspective on the human side of the Civil War, this program explores the dreams and imaginings of those who fought the war as recorded in their letters, journals and memoirs.

Sometimes published as poems or songs or printed in newspapers, these rarely acknowledged writings reflect the personalities and experiences of their authors. Some expressions of fear, pain, loss, homesickness and disappointment are related with grim fatalism, some with glimpses of humor.

The focus on dreams and the meaning of “home” to the soldier and his loved ones speaks to the universality of this experience to soldiers in all wars. Accompanying readings from correspondence and journal entries will be original songs, written and composed by singer/songwriter John Kenosian, based on the stories of the soldiers and their loved ones in Wanda Burch’s The Home Voices Speak Louder than the Drums: Dreams and the Imagination in Civil War Letters and Memoirs, (McFarland Publishers, summer, 2017). Books will be available.

Audience participation will be welcomed on some of the more familiar traditional songs from the Civil War period.

The Arkell Museum is located at 2 Erie Blvd., in Canajoharie, NY. Admission is free. An exhibit honoring Lt. Eugene Vickary will continue through the Veterans Day weekend. Joining Wanda and John will be guest soprano Gisella Montanez-Case.

Burch and Kenosian received an artist performance grant from Saratoga Arts for the presentation of performances in Montgomery County in 2017. Home Voices: the American Civil War Experience through Words and Music is scheduled for six venues in Montgomery County.
The final performance will focus on Christmas letters from Civil War soldiers writing to their families from fields of battle on Saturday, December 16, at 3 pm at the Century Club, Amsterdam, NY.

For further information, contact Wanda Burch at ronwan@capital.net or (518) 281-4937.

Photo of Wanda Burch and John Kenosian, provided.