UniteBoston

Bridging Divides Across Christians for the Flourishing of the City

Filled with Laughter Comedy Benefit

Bring your friends to this fun-filled evening of comedy and entertainment to help raise $25,000 for scholarships for women served by Hagar’s Sisters, who are striving to overcome their experience of domestic abuse.

The funds raised at this event will provide women with scholarships for full access to life-giving services including safety planning, legal consultation, referral to resources, prayer, and Biblically-based education and support.
Your ticket includes access to live comedy, silent & live auctions, musical entertainment, door prizes and a delicious dessert reception!

Tickets available here: https://hagarssisters.ticketbud.com/filledwithlaughter

Aardvark Jazz Orchestra to premiere the latest work by Mark Harvey, Faces of Souls

The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra continues its historic 45th season on Saturday, April 7, 2018 at 8:00 pm, with a show on MIT’s main stage, Kresge Auditorium, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139. The orchestra will perform the premiere of director Mark Harvey’s latest work, Faces of Souls, together with other Mark Harvey originals.  Presented by MIT Music & Theater Arts.  Free and open to the public.  Information: 617-452-3205 or 617-776-8778.

Mark Harvey is a composer, educator, bandleader and retired Methodist minister.  Many of his compositions explore themes of peace and social justice in American history and contemporary culture.   The program on April 7 will center around these themes, His piece Faces of Souls is inspired by the Charles Ives composition Boston Common and the Augustus Saint-Gaudens statue commemorating Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, heroes of the Civil War.  The April 7 show will feature other works by Mark Harvey, including The Journey (honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. and the struggle for civil rights), and Blue Butterfly, a blues evoking the late Brother Blue (aka Hugh Morgan Hill), a legendary storyteller famous in Boston and beyond, and a longtime friend of Aardvark.  The evening finale will be Harvey’s piece No Walls, Aardvark’s anthem of hope and inclusivity.

The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra has been praised as “stunningly beautiful and adventurous” (New York City Jazz Record),”captivating” (Jazz Improv), “spellbinding” (The Boston Globe), and “beyond category” (Downbeat).  JazzTimes wrote, “Aardvark suggests the best and the brashest of Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, George Russell, and even Frank Zappa.”

Founded in 1973, Aardvark has been a force in the international jazz scene for more than 45 years. The orchestra has premiered more than 175 works and appears on 14 CDs, including 8 on the Leo Records label.  Guest artists have included jazz luminaries Jaki Byard, Sheila Jordan, Jimmy Giuffre, Geri Allen, Lewis Porter, Dominique Eade, Walter Thompson, and Matt Savage.

Founder and music director Mark Harvey has performed at the Knitting Factory, the Village Gate, the National Gallery of Art (DC), Fenway Park, Boston’s Symphony Hall, the Berlin Jazz Festival (Germany), and the Baja State Theater (Mexico), to name a few.  He has recorded with George Russell and Baird Hersey, and performed with Gil Evans, Howard McGhee, Sam Rivers, and others.  Dr. Harvey teaches jazz studies at MIT.

Aardvark is: Allan Chase, Phil Scarff, Chris Rakowski, Dan Zupan/saxes and woodwinds; K.C. Dunbar, Jeanne Snodgrass/trumpets; Bob Pilkington, Jay Keyser/trombones; Jeff Marsanskis, Bill Lowe/bass trombones, tuba; Richard Nelson/guitar; John Funkhouser/string bass; Harry Wellott/drums; Jerry Edwards and Grace Hughes, vocalists; Mark Harvey/trumpet, music director.  Aardvark veterans Arni Cheatham and Peter H. Bloom will miss the April 7 show, but will be back on the bandstand soon.

The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra is managed by Americas Musicworks, Rebecca DeLamotte, director, telephone 617 776 8778, email:  delamotte-amw@comcast.net

Zach Williams Worship In The Adirondacks 2018

This is a great song from Zach Williams filled with great truth! We are so excited to have Zach joining us at this years Worship In The Adirondacks 2018. For details and tickets go to www.worshipintheadirondacks.com.

Faithful EP Release Party

Serene Chua, originally from Malaysia and currently based in Boston, is a worship leader and serves with The Navigators at Boston University. She is releasing her debut EP, called Faithful.

Faithful isn’t just about the songs but the journey she’s been on that led to writing them. The faithfulness of God has been an anchor for her in seasons of uncertainty and waiting, heartache and loss.

Come celebrate the release of her debut EP with a time of worship. There will be light refreshments and CD’s for sale.

Her prayer is for all to know and experience the goodness and faithfulness of God, regardless of the season one finds themselves in.

Look out for Faithful on all major music platforms on March 23!

Poem: Cry and Sing of Hope

In light of all that is happening in our nation, we need to remember that Jesus is on the throne and we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We also need to listen and fight for those who are most vulnerable in society.

A few years ago, after hearing the story of a young woman, Sarah Dunham, director of the Abolitionist Network at the Emmanuel Gospel Center, wrote this poem:

Cry and Sing of Hope

Race, privilege – authenticity? Belonging? Permission to grieve?
Who am I who has so much, who am I to cry?
I cry hearing the pain of my sister.
I have not lived it.
I chose to give up what I can easily choose to take back.
My education, my family network opens many doors others cannot access.
But I cry for that reality to change.
Can my cry be a trumpet blast in halls of complacency?

Can the cry of a middle class white girl on behalf of the sad broken state of our justice system, our schools, our neighborhoods and families, be heard and deemed legitamate?
Does it matter if they are?
I think so, but then I wonder, by who?

My friend is being sold. Abused. Exploited!!
No, I am not.
I have never been raped or molested, but my friend, my sister, has and is and This Must Stop!
I carry so many stories in my heart and they are heavy.

I cry out with a cry of empathy
No, I will never fully understand
So I will not try to be your voice but rather sound the trumpet, shake the ground,
open the cages of systems holding you back,
usher you into the doors I can, and then You cry out Your song of lament,
of truth,
and together we proclaim the song of hope.

“injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
If I see the injustice done against you and say nothing, what is that?
If I weep, not on my own behalf but for what is happening to you, am I not showing you I care? That I wish there was some other reality? That I wonder why you and not me and I am sorry for my privilege?

And I do weep on my own behalf in sorrow, regret, apology for what I – my race, my religion and my country have done.
What my government has done and fails to do, what my Church has done and fails to do.
I am part of the problem.
I am so sorry.

But I hear the rumblings of another way possible- in the cry and lament, imagining there must be something better
Do you hear it?
The low, steady heartbeats of hope reverberating in my spirit and yours, calling towards harmony!?
It rises
And I know I must not keep silence!
I invite you to join me in my weeping and my obstinate hope.
Let me not tell your story for you, label or forget you in my rush to sound the trumpet.
You and I together – we will cry and sing of hope.



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