At the Shadows Fall North premiere, from left: Burt Feintuch, UNH English professor & Director, Center for the Humanities, UNH; Valerie Cunningham, historian & founder, Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail; JerriAnne Boggis, Director, Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail; Brian Vawter, Director & Editor of Shadows Fall North; Nancy Vawter, Producer, Atlantic Media Productions; Jason Sokol, Associate Professor of History, UNH & panel moderator; Chris Curtis, Music Hall Programming Coordinator
No one expected a Tuesday night documentary exposing hard truths about African American history in New Hampshire to be a sellout event.
Yet, nearly 700 people came to see the world premiere of Shadows Fall North in The Music Hall’s Historic Theater on May 26. Produced by UNH’s Center for the Humanities and Atlantic Media Productions, the film features the key players responsible for Portsmouth’s African Burying Ground memorial park, honoring the centuries-old souls discovered beneath city sidewalks more than a decade ago. And it delves deep into the overlooked history of racism in Northern New England. A rallying cry to acknowledge untold stories and set history straight, it brought the house to a standing ovation.Read More
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In our second installment of Life Backstage we sat down with Mokoomba, who hail from Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Their sound is vibrant and distinct, combining traditional Tonga and pan-African music cultures with dashes of Rap, Ska, Soukous, and Afro-Cuban music. They appeared as part of our Live @ the Loft series. Our Deputy Director of Programming, Thérèse LaGamma caught up with them just before their show.
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Why Should I be a member of The Music Hall? This is by far the question that we get asked the most often and there are a lot of great benefits for being a part of our community. The easy answer is that members get to buy their tickets before anyone else, giving you access to tickets to see artists like Sarah McLachlan and Lyle Lovett.Read More
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This week I’m really excited to announce that we are launching a new micro interview series, Life Backstage. We wanted to give you, our patrons (and my loyal blog readers), a behind the curtain look at the acts that are getting ready to perform here at The Music Hall.Read More
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This week I wanted to highlight one of the driving forces behind membership, Philip Marcus. Philip, a member of our board, also works tirelessly on helping to grow our membership, as well as working on our annual Kitchen Tour. I sat down with Philip to talk about the work he does here, find out what his favorite memory of the theater, and why membership is important. Read More
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A little known fact about The Music Hall is that several of our staff choose to be members. This week, I sat down with our Senior Staff Accountant Suzanne Patrakis to talk about why she’s a member, what her favorite member benefits are, and what artist living or dead she would want to play at the Historic Theater.Read More
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