Fountain St Church Art Prize Venue by Her Own Hand
The early U2 band poster in the "Light-green Room" at Grand Rapids' Fountain Street Church is not there because the historic church in one case had a reverend who dug the boys from Dublin, the band actually played there in 1981.
The walls of the Green Room, back stage where guests often await shows, are filled with evidence of the musicians, comedians and just flat interesting people who have visited the famous stain-glass windowed, pipe-organ dominated sanctuary of the church.
And that history of exterior entertainers hitting the stage at Fountain Street will continue Monday, Feb. 14, with Waxahatchee (aka Katie Crutchfield) undoubtedly bringing songs from her new album, "Saint Cloud", to be released on March 27. (The vii p.m. testify volition take Madi Diaz opening.)
Fountain Street Church building has served every bit a platform for a diversity of performers since 1928 when senior minister Alfred Wesley Wishart debated Clarence Darrow over the topic "Is There a General Purpose in the Universe?"
Over the years, speakers such as Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt and Malcolm X have given talks. Notable musicians who have performed in the sanctuary range from Duke Ellington to Frank Zappa, from Alison Krauss to B.B. Male monarch.
Fountain Street Church is the venue just, non the promoter, of the entertainment scheduled — which will include comedian Fortune Feimster (currently seen on NBC series "Kenan") visiting every bit office of Gilda'due south Laughfest on March xviii besides as later shows past Needtobreathe and Welcome to the Nighttime Vale.
Needtobreathe, with Patrick Droney, is scheduled for May 17. Welcome to the Nighttime Vale, with Danny Schmidt and Carrie Elkin, is scheduled for June thirteen.
For more information nearly all shows, visit here.
Take a visit to Waxahatchee
Waxahatchee'due south new album, "Saint Cloud" is "an unflinching cocky-exam," according to the ring's promotional material.
"From a moment of reckoning in Barcelona to a tourist trap in Tennessee to a painful confrontation on Arkadelphia Road, from a nostalgic jaunt downward 7th Street in New York City to the Mississippi Gulf, Crutchfield creates a sense of place for her soul-baring tales, a longtime staple of her storytelling. This raw, exposed narrative terrain is aided by a shift in sonic arrangements every bit well."
Waxahatchee is a project fronted Katie Crutchfield, a vocaliser and songwriter from Birmingham, Ala. She debuted the projection in 2011 and has released three critically acclaimed albums nether its name since 2012.
Since the historic period of fifteen Crutchfield played in indie stone bands with her twin sister, Allison, the first was called The Ackleys, and the 2d was called P.Southward Elliot. That union and ring(s) came to an stop in 2011.
Around the same time Cruchfield needed to get abroad from the world, so she went to her parents vacation habitation in her native state of Alabama. She spent her week in that location writing the songs that would brand up her debut equally Waxahatchee, "American Weekend".
"Katie Crutchfield'south southern roots are undeniable," it states on her website. "The name of her solo musical projection Waxahatchee comes from a creek non far from her babyhood home in Alabama and seems to stand for both where she came from and where she's going."
Past K.D. Norris
Later an 18-month search by Grand Rapids' Fountain Street Church building for its next senior minister, the congregation today confirmed the calling of the Rev. Mariela Pérez-Simons, who made clear in her first sermon that, despite the challenging times, there is hope and beauty in the globe.
The Rev. Pérez-Simons, who near recently served at the All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, will exist taking the pulpit held by the Rev. W. Frederick Wooden for 15 years. In so doing volition she becomes the 11th senior minister of the celebrated church of "liberal theology" — and becomes not only the showtime female to concord the mail merely also the first person of color.
Opening a mostly prerecorded Lord's day forenoon virtual church service, the Rev. Pérez-Simons, joined the Rev. Christopher Roe, Minister for Spiritual Life and Learning, offered reaction today to the weekend's first peaceful — and and then, separately, violent — local protests spurred by the social injustice in the land.
"Beloveds, nosotros are shocked, we are heartbroken, nosotros are aroused, we are confused, we are ready for change, nosotros are fix for justice," the Rev. Pérez-Simons said, in a glimpse of her passion for social action. "And nosotros pledge to be function of the solution."
Post-obit the virtual church service, the results of congregation voting were announced at a virtual meeting of church building members. The Rev. Pérez-Simons — "Rev. Mariela", as she often asks to exist addressed — has spend the last few weeks meeting with various church committees, groups and individuals in virtual setting.
But the church'due south Senior Minister Search Committee previously conducted extensive and in person interviews with the church's new senior minister.
"During the long and thorough interview procedure, the Search Committee has been impressed by Rev. Mariela'southward intellect, insight and sensitivity. Nosotros are moved by her personal story," co-ordinate to an Apr statement to the church building members announcing Rev. Pérez-Simons every bit the final candidate and detailing the mail service-in confirmation voting procedure. "Rev. Mariela was built-in in Cuba into a life of farthermost poverty. Equally a child, she sought solace in nature and in the Catholic Church."
Seeing beauty in troubling earth
While Rev. Mariela's religious journey led her from the Catholic Church to the Unitarian Universalist Association church, she has never wavered from her dear of nature — as evidenced by a discussion with WKTV about her views of beauty in a world fifty-fifty during troubling, fifty-fifty ugly, times.
Function of the word included her piece of work in fine art photography — she has an on-line gallery at fineartamerica.com and samples on her personal website — specifically discussed was a 2014 photograph she titled "Cabin in the Woods", taken in New Hampshire.
"I took that photograph i early morning, correct afterward an overnight snowstorm," Rev. Mariela said to WKTV. "It was a pulverization-similar snow, shimmering in the morn light. And everything was then tranquility, the air so crisp. January in New England. My married man is from New Hampshire. I was just taking a walk, and that cabin caught my attention correct away …
"Beauty — in nature, in art, etc. — is a huge part of not only my theology, my work as a minister, merely too my social justice work. In fact, that was what I preached on for my ordination, because it'south a pillar of who I am and what I practice."
She then referenced a contempo sermon in which she discussed her finale paper in seminary.
"I wrote about the Gospel of Matthew, Affiliate 6 verses 25-31, where Jesus asks us to consider the lilies of the fields, to wait at the birds of the sky," she said in an April 26, 2020 sermon in which she talked about the beauty of nature. "He was pointing united states towards the beauty of creation, towards the heaven that is hither and now. The well-nigh beautiful Earth.
"Dazzler has been a fascination of mine since I was a very pocket-sized child, living in poverty in Republic of cuba. And, naturally, it became a theological focus."
(The online video sermon, "The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible" is available here.)
The Rev. Pérez-Simons' history
In the statement of introduction by Fountain Street Church building's search committee, Rev. Mariela described herself this way:
"I am a religious naturalist — someone who falls on their knees with reverence for things like hurricanes, or sunrises, or perfect cumulus clouds. … this menstruum of my life shaped my ministry building today and my agreement of what 'church' is and how it tin alter the lives of individuals, particularly those who are suffering due to social injustices."
According to supplied fabric, she earned a bachelor's degree from Instituto Superior Pedagogico in Havana while studying elementary education. In 1995, she and her family entered the United States as asylum seekers.
During the adjacent two decades, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Writing/Literature from Bennington College and started a spider web design and photography firm. She is married, to Dean Pérez-Simons, and is the mother of Christopher, age 23, and Lucia (Lulu), historic period 13.
While volunteering at her UUA church, leading women's circles, working at an eco-spirituality sanctuary and creating a garden at a homeless day center, she "felt a strong pull to the ministry building," co-ordinate to the Fountain Street Church announcement.
"The telephone call was perfectly clear, the longing was excruciating, but I needed a few more years of inner work to feel worthy of being a minister," she said in supplied cloth.
In the backwash of "the election of 2016", she received "the last push."
The Meadville Lombard Seminary, the Unitarian Universalist seminary in Chicago, offered her a full-ride Presidential Scholarship. The school is one of only 2 UUA seminaries in the world, has an historical relationship with the University of Chicago — which Fountain Street Church, and several of its past ministers, have ties to — and is a member of the Association of Chicago Theological Schools.
Rev. Mariela graduated at the top of her class with a Chief of Divinity after her ordination at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Tulsa — the largest UUA church in the world.
And now her next cease on her religious journey volition be in W Michigan.
Fountain Street and social activeness
"I like that Fountain Street is an urban church … a church that is open to possibilities and wants to grow with me: in health, in vitality, in enthusiasm, in diversity and in numbers," she said in supplied material.
Social action, already a huge focus of Fountain Street, volition exist some other focus of its new minister, equally "Rev. Mariela's social justice work shows a special passion for marginalized communities, bi-lingual rights, refugee reform and diversity in every form," according to the announcement.
"I approach social action from a stiff theological and spiritual identify — from a place of abundance," she said in supplied fabric. "I come up to this as an asylum seeker, so I am uniquely qualified. But information technology's not about me; it'due south near us. I can't do what I'g passionate about if the congregation isn't involved."
And in the difficult days in which Rev. Mariela takes leadership of Fountain Street Church building, social action has never been more important.
For more information on Fountain Street Church visit here.
By WKTV Staff
Chiliad Rapids' Fountain Street Church building, in partnership with Thousand Rapids Community Media Center, will host a free and live virtual screening of the new Doo Wop music documentary "Streetlight Harmonies, to be followed by a question and answer event, Midweek, May 20, at 6 p.m.
Hosted by Fountain Street's Virginia Anzengruber, the event volition feature motion picture director Brent Wilson, producer Theresa Page, Doo Wop legends Vito Picone, Sammy Strain, Terry Johnson, and Wealthy Theatre's Sarah Nawrocki.
The event is a fundraiser for both Fountain Street Church and the Grand Rapids Customs Media Center. Rent or purchase the film through May 20 on Amazon Smile will result in a percentage of the proceeds beingness donated dorsum to Fountain Street Church or One thousand Rapids Community Media Center (whichever is chosen).
Co-ordinate to supplied material, "Streetlight Harmonies" is "an entertaining journey through the groups, songs, and harmonies that evoke both days gone past as well equally electric current hits … Streetlight Harmonies uncovers a definitive period of music and the artists that defined it. Millions know the music but few know the artists and their history that laid the foundation for Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Dejection, and built a bridge to the Ceremonious Rights Motion."
"Streetlight Harmonies" is a Ley Line Entertainment production, distributed past Gravitas Ventures. For more information on "Streetlight Harmonies" visit streetlightharmonies.com.
Past K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
You accept to appreciate musicians who understand the power of falsetto, the right blend of songs to create and to cover, and the perfection of a venue with superb acoustics.
And then at that place volition be a lot to appreciate when Whitney, busy on the road in support of their late 2019 release Forever Turned Effectually, visit Grand Rapids' Fountain Street Church'southward sanctuary for a concert Sunday, February. 16, at 7 p.m., with CHAI opening.
At the end of the busy bout schedule to end 2019 and begin 2020, bouncing from their Chicago dwelling to the Britain, and and so from Miami to Montreal, the duo to could not have picked a more perfect place to end their current sojourn that the renown acoustic setting of Fountain Street.
Restlessness, in fact, is "at the centre of Whitney's resonant and stunning sophomore albumForever Turned Effectually," co-ordinate to supplied cloth. "As Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek realized over the past three years, life can change drastically. Priorities shift, relationships evolve, home can become far away, and fifty-fifty when luck momentarily works out, there's however that underlying search for something better."
Post-obit the success of their 2016 debut release, Light Upon The Lake, the pair take relied on their partnership every bit they hit the road for what, at times, seems similar an endless tours across the world.
"Our friendship has kept us going fifty-fifty though so much has happened in the years since we started the band," Ehrlich said in supplied material.
Whitney has long been a full-fledged band with keyboardist Malcolm Chocolate-brown, rhythm guitarist Ziyad Asrar, guitarist Impress Choteau, bassist Josiah Marshall, and trumpeter Will Miller bankroll them alive.
Just Ehrlich and Kakacek are the heart and soul of Whitney.
Both in their mid-twenties, living through the usual life's ups and downs, "they've constitute home through themselves, their romantic relationships, and their friends, (but) there'south an uneasiness that comes from stability — equally evidenced past Ehrlich's vocals on "Valleys (My Love)": "In that location's fire called-for in the copse / Maybe life is the way it seems".
In its 10 songs,Forever Turned Effectually allows Ehrlich and Kakacek to "skeptically however masterfully navigate questions of bloodshed, doubt, love, and friendship in a grander scope than they've attempted before. It's an album about partnership — romantic, familial and communal, simply well-nigh chiefly a beloved in friendship: the bonds between two best friends and creative partners and the joy and stress that comes with information technology."
On "Used To Exist Alone", Ehrlich sings: 'Well it made no sense at all / Until you came along."
Forever Turned Around came together over several sessions across the land and the world tour, with its primeval material written during bout dates in Lisbon, Portugal. Though Ehrlich is Whitney's lead singing drummer while Kakacek is the lead guitarist, when writing, both transcend their roles to piece together each offering lyrically and compositionally, they state.
"The fashion it ends up working is one of u.s. comes upward with a basic idea for a song and the other person serves every bit the foil to complicate that idea. We ask, 'What tin we change to make information technology more interesting?'," says Kakacek. "A big thing for the states is our ability to accept criticism. Nosotros're ever open to new ideas."
Later a session with producers Bradley Cook (Bon Iver, Mitt Habits) and Jonathan Rado (Weyes Blood, Father John Misty) helped color in the arrangements, the anthology came together when they reunited with original rhythm guitarist Asrar in his basement Chicago studio — the same identify where they hashed out much of Light Upon The Lake. With Asrar'due south help, songs like "Song For Ty" and "Forever Turned Effectually" effortlessly came together. There, the band enlisted Chicago musicians Lia Kohl and OHMME's Macie Stewart to provide strings throughout the tape.
While yous and I tin can make our own sentence on the band's sound and soundness, the New York Times rather appropriately says of the music on Forever Turned Effectually: "In writing and arranging, they favor natural imagery and dominicus-dappled contumely; their frontman, Julien Ehrlich, applies his weightless falsetto to musings on human being connection, often sounding melancholy simply never morose."
Just seeing them, hearing them, at Fountain Street Church volition undoubtedly exceed all expectations.
Tickets are $xxx ($35 at the door on the nighttime of the concert). For more than information on the testify, produced in partnership with WYCE and The Pyramid Scheme, visit here.
By WKTV Staff
ken@wktv.org
If you are into binge watching the latest "hot" tv show — say the honor season darling "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", or the much anticipated "Picard" — but still want to dig piddling deeper into the show, Fountain Street Church as an monthly series for you.
Fountain Street Church'southward "FSC Screen Gild" volition proceed its 2019/2020 Season, a series hosted at the Micro Cinema at Wealthy Theatre and in partnership with Grand Rapids Community Media Heart, with a discussion of Ms. Maisel and her adventures on Monday, Jan. xiii.
The FSC Screen Guild meets 1 Mon each month, with the free to the public result starting at 6 p.g. Registration is encouraged, just not required, and can be washed here.
Fountain Street Church'southward Virginia Anzengruber hosts a panel give-and-take led by Wealthy Theatre director Sarah Nawrocki and, according to supplied information, features "regional influencers and film & television experts to dissect, analyze, and discuss some of today's most thought-provoking TV shows."
"Participants sentry the shows at their own footstep, on their own schedules. It'due south similar a volume social club that y'all can binge watch."
The January event will focus on the Emmy Accolade-winning Amazon Prime serial "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", created by Amy Sherman-Palladino ("Gilmore Girls"), starring Rachel Brosnahan ("House of Cards"), Tony Shalhoub ("Monk"), and Alex Borstein ("Family unit Guy").
"In 1958 New York, Midge Maisel's life is on runway — husband, kids, and elegant Yom Kippur dinners in their Upper W Side apartment," as it is described in a media release. "But when her life takes a surprise plow, she has to speedily decide what else she's good at — and going from housewife to stand-upwardly comic is a wild choice to everyone but her."
The remainder of the FCS Screen Club 2019/2020 flavor includes discussions as follows: February. 10, "The Good Place" (NBC); March 9, "Kidding" (Showtime); Apr 27, "Picard" (CBS All Admission); and May 11, "What We Practise In The Shadows" (FX).
All of which give yous enough of time to binge watch and catch upwardly.
Fountain Street Church, located in downtown One thousand Rapids, is an contained, pluralist church building with a 150-year history of progressive activeness. for more data visit here.
Past K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
On the latest episode of WKTV Journal In Focus, nosotros bring to light the urgent need and community efforts to battle family homelessness in the Greater Thou Rapids surface area. We talk with Kate O'Keefe, Director of Development and Community Engagement at Family Promise of Grand Rapids.
The local non-turn a profit has the mission of ending "homelessness, one family unit at a fourth dimension, by engaging faith-based and customs organizations to provide emergency shelter and bones needs to families with children who are homeless and to provide boosted programs to aid them in finding housing and sustaining their independence."
Founded in 1997 equally the Greater Grand Rapids Interfaith Hospitality Network, Family unit Promise (familypromisegr.org) now partners with local congregations, individuals, families, foundations and corporations to provide emergency shelter and "viable solutions" for families with children who are facing a housing crisis.
WKTV Journal In Focus airs on cable idiot box in the Wyoming and Kentwood areas on Comcast WKTV Channel 26 and on AT&T Channel 99 Government channel (see our Weekly On-air Schedule for dates and times). All individual interviews included in episodes of WKTV Periodical In Focus are also available on YouTube at WKTVvideos.
A festive functioning of songs of the holiday season concludes the 2019 Grand Valley State University Fall Arts Commemoration.
The holiday celebration, "Love Songs of the Season," is Monday, Dec. 2, at 7:xxx p.m. at Fountain Street Church, 24 Fountain St. NE. Performers from local school districts volition join those from the university for the event.
The concert includes yuletide selections from British composers David Willcocks and John Rutter. Audiences will hear Willcocks' contumely choir settings of beloved carols as well as Rutter'due south classical holiday masterpiece, "Gloria."
The celebration is the perfect style to start the holiday season, said Danny Phipps, chair of the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance. The evening will besides include a sing-along.
"Fountain Street Church building, decorated for the holidays and coupled with both the visual and aural effect of massed choirs and instrumentalists, volition be a banquet for the eyes and ears to everyone who attends," Phipps said. "This twelvemonth the University Arts Chorale and Cantate volition be joined in performance by the Hudsonville High School Varsity Voices, Due west Ottawa High Schoolhouse Vocalaires, and our special guests, the Jenison Elementary Honors Choir."
All Fall Arts Celebration events are gratuitous and open to the public. For more information visit gvsu.edu/fallarts.
By WKTV Staff
victoria@wktv.org
Quote of the Day
I'm not large on fuzzy or fleecy slippers. I just don't similar the texture and the heat. It simply gets to be too much.
Aidy Bryant
'Lawmaking Bluish' helps keep homeless
neighbors safe and warm
In training for plummeting temperatures, Mel Trotter Ministries (MTM) is shifting into a "code blue" status to ensure men, women and children experiencing homelessness are safe. Diverse warming centers have been identified throughout the urban center, including at Mel Trotter Ministries | View complete warming center list. MTM is collecting new and similar-new coats, boots and various other items for all ages and genders. Become hither for the details.
Coffee aficionados, rejoice!
After tracking nearly 105,000 Danes for an boilerplate of eight years, researchers plant that those who downed more than than six cups per 24-hour interval of the world's about popular beverage saw their gallstone adventure driblet past 23%. Here'south the story.
Happiness is warm jazz
Jazz standards, African-American spirituals and a little something new will be on the setlist as the Jazz in the Sanctuary concert series opens its sixth season Sun, Nov. 17, in the acoustically inspiring sanctuary of Fountain Street Church in downtown Thousand Rapids. Read all well-nigh it here.
Fun fact:
And now for a truly
warm, fuzzy fact
A group of wild rabbits is chosen a 'fluffle'. It's also called a 'colony', but does that really convey the essence of 'bunny' very well? We think not. And so, fluffle, it is.
(A kerfluffle is an entirely different matter.)
By Virginia Anzengruber, Fountain Street Church building
The sixth season of the Jazz in the Sanctuary concert series will begin on Dominicus, Nov. 17, at 3pm. The series combines contemporary jazz performance with the neo-Romanesque dazzler and acoustic splendor of Fountain Street Church in downtown One thousand Rapids.
For each concert in the series, guest performers bring together Robin Connell, series host and an accomplished jazz musician herself, onstage for more than an hour of music and lite chat. A large project screen displays the performers in detail, and Connell often invites audition members to enquire questions.
The November. 17 concert will characteristic vocalist Ashley Daneman and her hubby, trumpeter Benje Daneman.
Ashley Daneman, originally from Ohio, honed her singing voice in Washington, D.C., and New York City, earning her principal'due south degree from the prestigious Manhattan School of Music. Her original music, which can exist heard on Bandcamp and other online platforms, has drawn comparisons to Becca Stevens, Laura Nyro, and even Stephen Sondheim.
Benje Daneman got his professional first in 2007 with the Doc Severinsen Big Band and now performs and records with his band SearchParty. He has co-founded and directed multiple educational programs including the Jazz & Creative Plant (JCI), Kalamazoo Youth Jazz Orchestra, Kalamazoo Trumpet Workshop, and JazzStart Summer Jazz Workshop.
Connell received West Michigan Jazz Society'due south 2017 "Musician of the Year" honour for her widespread collaboration with area jazz artists and her piece of work on this series. She performs regularly throughout West Michigan, often with her married man, trombonist and educator Paul Brewer. She is currently planning this season's second Jazz in the Sanctuary effect, which will feature pianist Lisa Sung.
Full general admission to each Jazz in the Sanctuary concert is $15 online or at the door. Students admission is $five with a valid school ID. Please visit fountainstreet.org/jazz.
[huge_it_slider id="87″]
Past Yard.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
Fountain Street Church, housed in perhaps the most historic house of prayer in downtown Grand Rapids but with members Kent County wide and beyond, prides itself on many things — not the least of which is frequently being seen as the well-nigh liberal church in the region.
So while the church building has been honoring its past during its 150th anniversary year, a multi-event celebration reaching its pinnacle Sunday, Sept. 15, with its Thousand Celebration Street Party, it is also looking forward to what'southward next for the church.
Function of the reason for the street party, however, is to invite the greater Yard Rapids community to learn more most Fountain Street and, maybe, become part of its future.
"In order to look into the future, yous have to be willing to look into the past. And that is what nosotros are doing," Todd Johnson, co-chair of the chruch'due south 150th Celebration committee, said to WKTV. "Nosotros are saying 'Look at all nosotros accept done in the last 150 years, let gloat that. And so allow'south say 'What is the future for Fountain Street Church?' … Nosotros are celebrating the past as a step into the hereafter."
(For a unique look at the history of Fountain Street Church, WKTV asked Senior Minister W. Frederick Wooden for his pivotal persons in the life of the church. Read the story here.)
Judy Botts, a coordinator of the street party, detailed the many facets of the free-to-the public Sept. 15 event, which will run from 12-iv p.yard. and will take place in a closed-to-traffic cake between the Grand Rapids Public Library and Fountain Street Church. The party volition include face painting and a Henna tattoo artist on site, individual and family photographs, a bounce house and corn hole tournament, cotton candy and snowfall cones, live music from the B-Side Growlers, a mime creative person, nutrient, and a welcoming address from former Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell, who will deliver a speech titled: "Why Grand Rapids Needs Fountain Street Church."
WKTV Community Media's Voices project is also partnering with Fountain Street Church on a special oral history project, with a WKTV representative present to talk virtually the project. Voices is the personal and family oral history project with the mission "to collect, share and preserve the narratives of people in our customs … (stories) of our lives; of people from all walks of life." (For more than data on Voices, visit wktvvoices.org .)
"What we desire to happen is, yes, many Fountain Streeters to come up — past and present people who attend this church building," Botts said. But it is not just for those who know Fountain Street and its many facets. "This is a diverse grouping of people that seek answers to questions that they have regarding religion. It is a very open up community. Nosotros welcome all people and their thoughts. We will share the dissimilar groups we have here that they (the public) might exist interested in joining."
The 150th celebration events so far take certainly showed that diversity.
After starting with a beginning party in Dec of last year, in March there were special programs on the History of Women at Fountain Street Church building, in Apr many members of the church went to Brewery Vivant for a celebration of a special mash release — the "Fountain Streeter" — and they liked information technology so much then did it again in August. There was likewise a Spirit of the Arts show, a sort of talent show for Fountain Streeters, and a special Memorial Concert "The Spirit Sings!" featuring the church building'due south Oratorio Choir and the Aquinas College Chorus highlighted past the globe premiere of "Tell All the Truth" past Nicholas Palmer.
Perhaps the most well attended, both by church members as well equally the community in general, was the first and now almanac Pride Service, at the beginning of LGBTQ+ Pride Month in June.
The church's more than recent moves to cover the LGBTQ+ community, besides every bit the local minority, refugee and homeless communities, was role of a discussion WKTV had with Rev. Wooden, also every bit Johnson and Botts, when we asked about their most treasured memories of the church. (Read that story hither.)
For more information about the Fountain Street Church building 150th Anniversary Grand Celebration Street Party, visit hither.
Past K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
The Fountain Street Church building customs has been honoring its past and looking to its futurity during its 150th ceremony year, and its collective retention is deep with history and tradition.
But if yous inquire private members — those who attend Lord's day for its more traditional Sanctuary Service in the awesome and history sanctuary, or its it very non-traditional Chapel Service in its humble but equally historic chapel, or those who are at Fountain Street for the multitude of activities and groups throughout the residuum of the calendar week — it is the individual memories that often stand out.
WKTV asked iii Fountain Streeters what their most cherished memories were, and the answers ranged from a special prom for youth who practise not fit into the "straight" prom scene, to a woman'south grouping focused on community outreach, to the smiles on the faces of children reenacting the Christmas Story.
If that does not tell the story of the spectrum of people at Fountain Street, nothing will.
"The thing I recollect, that means the most to me, is when we instituted the Family Christmas Pageant, on Christmas Eve," said Todd Johnson, co-chair of the church'due south 150th Celebration committee. "We'd been holding an 8 o'clock and and 11 o'clock service, but for many of us with children that was besides late for them. They'd autumn comatose. So we started a 5 o'clock service and information technology was simply dandy.
"For the kids, we basically reenact the Christmas story. Nosotros have Mary and Joseph, and someone reads the story, and the innkeeper and the kings and the angels and the shepherds. The kids would participate in this wonderful service. It would culminate with each kid taking a footling candle, a iv-inch candle, they'd light it and they'd put it in the front end of the chancel.
"It was simply cute," he said, fighting back tears of cute memories. "They'd plow the lights out and we'd all sing 'Silent Nighttime'. It is but a beautiful service."
Memories, and lifelong friends, are also fabricated outside the church.
One of the many community outreach activities of the church, which has members and attendees all across West Michigan, are having Districts, geographical divisions with district leaders who piece of work with fellow Fountain Streeters on activities, gatherings and projects — and, sometimes, personal needs.
"I've been a Commune leader for like xiv, xv years," said Judy Botts, a coordinator of the Fountain Street Church 150th Anniversary Yard Celebration Street Party. "It started off beingness a group of fourteen or 15 of us, and over the years we are downwardly to about five people. But nosotros come up together once a month and our purpose is to assist people within our geographic district that we've been assigned to, in terms of whatsoever intendance services they have, to involve people in social action kinds of things, and just plan fun things inside our districts then that people can get to know each other ameliorate, to make stronger connections.
"That is what makes the church, the connections that you have," she said. "At that place is long term friendships that accept been established here. … That is role of what a church building is about."
Minister'southward has many special memories, simply …
Even the senior minister of Fountain Street, W. Frederick Wooden, a man whose efforts and accomplishments are as well long to list, will — if pressed — pick one memory that stands out.
"There are also many wonderful moments. That is what keeps a clergy person going," Wooden said. "Information technology is the moments of real meaning and power, and they exercise come.
"But the one I'll option, because it is different from the others, is the Fountain Club meetings of our loftier school (historic period) youth. Seven years agone, maybe upwardly of 10, nosotros had the idea that at that place were kids their historic period in high schools effectually the surface area that could not go to their prom because they did not identify as 'straight'. And if they went as themselves, they would be ridiculed, bullied or harassed.
"And they (the club), they came upwards with the idea that we should host a prom for all those who did not experience welcomed at their prom. … Every yr since, we have had a dance for LGBTQ kids — and their friends, it is not just for LGBTQ kids merely everybody else. … They come in all shapes and sizes and colors … and they are just having the best of time in the world.
"There is nothing that makes you feel more than hopeful most the future," he said. "If this is what America is going to await like, I am all for information technology."
By Virginia Anzengruber, Fountain Street Church building
ESME'due south heady live music and dance production returns to Grand Rapids at Fountain Street Church building featuring a unique ensemble that includes dancers of the Grand Rapids Ballet.
Original dance choreography is set to the music of Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Radiohead and interwoven together through a series of narrative twists. Swan Song takes an eclectic music plan and re-imagines it as a demo reel of thematic vignettes, combining personal storytelling with the immediacy of live music and trip the light fantastic interaction to create an engaging concert feel that is part intimate, part cinematic, and wholly accessible to a various audition.
Don't miss it: June 21, 7:30pm at Fountain Street Church, 24 Fountain St NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503.
For more info, become hither.
By Fountain Street Church building
Fountain Street Church building is launching a new series, the 'Summer Screen Guild'. 1 night each month this summer, the church will host a panel discussion featuring regional not-profit organizations, and pic and television experts to dissect, analyze, and hash out some of today'south almost idea-provoking TV shows.
Participants scout the shows at their own footstep, on their ain schedules. It's like a volume club that yous can rampage watch. The first event of the series will exist held on Th, June 20, 2019, from six-8pm at Fountain Street Church, and will feature panelists Lydia VanHoven-Melt, of Better Body Image Briefing, and Sarah Vesely, Executive Director of Wealthy Theater. All Summer Screen Club events are free and open to the public. Registration is encouraged (non required) and can be washed here.
The June 20, 2019, event volition be discussing the Hulu series Shrill, based on the volume Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman past Lindy West. The series stars and is co-written by Aidy Bryant (Saturday Night Alive), with Executive Producers Lorne Michaels (Saturday Dark Live), Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect), and Aidy Bryant. From the Shrill printing site: "Annie [is] a fat young woman who wants to change her life — simply not her trunk. Annie is trying to start her career while juggling bad boyfriends, a ill parent, and a perfectionist boss."
By Virginia Anzengruber, Fountain Street Church building
The Jazz in the Sanctuary concert series will conclude its 6th season at Fountain Street Church on Sunday, May fifth. The concerts, curated and hosted past West Michigan jazz mainstay Robin Connell, pair the spontaneous wonder of jazz with the acoustic and architectural beauty of the century-old, neo-Romanesque sanctuary in downtown 1000 Rapids. As the church building celebrates its 150-year Anniversary in 2019, Connell volition welcome fellow Michigan musicians Elgin Vines on bass and Alain Sullivan on saxophone.
Vines has been described every bit i of the most sought-after jazz bassists in West Michigan. Every bit a student at Norfolk Land University, he paid his tuition past gigging along the Virginia Beach strip and was a fellow member of the firm trio on the daily Morty Nevins Television Prove for iii years. After graduating, he went on the road with The New Direction for 8 years, and then in 1972 settled in Grand Rapids to play for the Bennie Carew Trio and work as a technologist for Amway. In 2005, the West Michigan Jazz Society named him their Musician of the Year.
Sullivan is a xix-year-quondam jazz saxophonist, bandleader, composer/arranger, and woodwind instrumentalist based in Thou Rapids, Michigan. He currently attends the Academy of Michigan, pursuing a Bachelor of Science caste in biochemistry toward pre-medicine, likewise as a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in jazz studies nether the tutelage of its esteemed kinesthesia, including Andrew Bishop, Ellen Rowe, Dennis Wilson, Robert Hurst, and Benny Green. He has performed in a broad variety of musical settings, including jazz settings of all types and several pit orchestras for musicals, doubling on flute and clarinet. He has played frequently throughout Michigan, across the state, and in Deutschland and Denmark. In 2018, he was presented with a YoungArts award, which is given to just a handful of immature artists in multiple disciplines.
Connell herself is a prolific jazz pianist, vocalizer, and educator who received the 2017 Musician of the Twelvemonth honour from West Michigan Jazz Order for her widespread collaboration with other artists and her continuing work on the Jazz in the Sanctuary series. Whether solo or in a group, she performs regularly throughout the region.
General admission to Jazz in the Sanctuary is $xv online or at the door. College students may show ID for $5 admission. Tickets and boosted data are available at fountainstreet.org/jazz.
Fountain Street Church building is an independent firm of worship with an open up pulpit and a 150-year history of progressive action in the heart of Due west Michigan.
For more data about Fountain Street Church or the Jazz in the Sanctuary concert series, please contact Conor Bardallis, Events Manager, at cbardallis@fountainstreet.org or 616-459-8386 ext. 221 or Virginia Anzengruber, Content and Communications Manager at vanzengruber@fountainstreet.org.
By Fountain Street Church
The fifth season of Fountain Street Church's 'Jazz in the Sanctuary' concert series volition begin on Sun, November. 4, at 3pm. The serial pairs the spontaneous wonder of jazz with the acoustic and architectural dazzler of the century-old sanctuary in downtown Yard Rapids.
Robin Connell, serial host and staple of the Due west Michigan jazz scene, will welcome trombonists Paul Brewer and Altin Sencalar for over an hour of exciting music and calorie-free conversation. Connell received Westward Michigan Jazz Club's 2017 "Musician of the Year" honour for her widespread collaboration with expanse jazz artists and her continuing work on the Jazz in the Sanctuary series.
Brewer, a prolific trombonist and singer, is the Director of Instrumental Music at Aquinas College and the Managing director of Aquinas Jazz Military camp. He has performed with more 50 nationally touring artists, including Mel Torme, Lena Horne, and The Temptations. His latest projection, "J & Yard — Trombone Tribute", is an homage to legendary jazz trombonists JJ Johnson and Kai Winding.
Sencalar is an internationally recognized trombonist, music educator, and composer who has opened for the O'Jays and Chaka Khan. He has received prizes for competitions such as the American Trombone Workshop, the International Trombone Association, and Downbeat Magazine's Pupil Music Awards. He currently serves equally a graduate assistant at Michigan Land University.
The second and tertiary concerts of this season will have place on Feb. 10, 2019, featuring pianist Xavier Davis, and May 4, 2019, featuring saxophonist Alain Sullivan and bassist Elgin Vines.
Jazz in the Sanctuary is made possible by the Music Committee of Fountain Street Church, Aquinas College Music Department, Blue Lake Public Radio, West Michigan Jazz Society, WGVU Radio, Wood-TV, and WYCE 88.1fm.
Full general access to each Jazz in the Sanctuary concert is $15 online or at the door. College students may show ID for $10 off. Tickets and additional information are available at fountainstreet.org/jazz.
Past K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
As part of her efforts to promote race, gender and economical justice in Michigan and across the nation, activist/actress Jane Fonda will talk well-nigh her life as an activist in a free-to-the-public upshot at Grand Rapids' Fountain Street Church building on Friday, October. 26.
The event — billed every bit "An Evening with Jane Fonda to Back up One Fair Wage" and hosted by Michigan I Fair Wage Protect and Defend Campaign — is scheduled from vi:30-vii:30 p.m.
Fonda has long been a visible political activist, commencement during the Vietnam War and later in advocacy for women's issues, workers rights, and other social issues.
"Fonda will share information on her life as an activist, the contempo work that she has been doing in Michigan and across the country to promote race, gender and economic justice for low-income workers, and the importance of building multi-racial alliances to create a more just society for all," as stated in an outcome flyer supplied to WKTV by Michigan One Fair Wage.
Fountain Street is located at 24 Fountain Street NE, Grand Rapids. While the issue is gratis and open to the public, they ask for an RSVP at bit.ly/fscofw .
I of the Michigan issues Fonda has previously advocated for is the Michigan Minimum Wage Increase Initiative, which gained enough signatures to be on the Nov. vi ballot and was adopted by the legislature in September — a move which would allow lawmakers to brand changes to it with a unproblematic majority instead of a college threshold should the voters take approved information technology in November.
The legislature's action was seen by some as giving lawmakers the power to weaken the law'southward requirements during a lame-duck session later this twelvemonth, or in 2019.
1 of the groups which advocated for the Michigan Minimum Wage Increase, and now advocates for it not being altered by the Michigan lawmakers, is the Michigan Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Network (MUUSJN).
"My statewide religion group … supports raising the minimum wage to $12/hour for all Michigan workers," Randy Block, director of the MUUSJN, said in an email to WKTV. "It's a moral issue: all workers deserve to earn plenty to accept care of their families."
The MUUSJN is a statewide religion network that advocates for social justice policies, including raising the minimum wage and supporting a policy of earned paid ill time for all workers. It is role of an Economical Justice Alliance of Michigan (EJAM) coalition that supports both of these policy goals. According to supplied data, the network includes thousands of justice activists from 26 Unitarian Universalist congregations, including one in 1000 Rapids.
For more than information on the event call 517-588-9646. For more information on Michigan One Fair Wage visit MIOneFairWage.org .
For more than information on Fountain Street Church, visit fountainstreet.org or visit the church'due south Facebook page.
By Fountain Street Church
The fourth season of Fountain Street Church'southward Jazz in the Sanctuary concert series volition conclude on Sunday, March 11, at 3 p.1000.
The series pairs the spontaneous wonder of jazz with the acoustic and architectural beauty of the century-quondam sanctuary in downtown Grand Rapids. Robin Connell, series host and staple of the Due west Michigan jazz scene, will welcome pianist Dave Proulx and bassist David Rosin for more than an 60 minutes of exciting music and light conversation.
Connell received West Michigan Jazz Society's 2017 "Musician of the Year" honor for her widespread collaboration with area jazz artists and her continuing work on the Jazz in the Sanctuary series.
Originally from Grand Rapids, Proulx is the pastor of Battle Creek Community Church and an accomplished musician in the realms of worship, jazz, and beyond. His blood brother, John Proulx, is perhaps the better-known jazz pianist in Michigan, but the ii benefited as from growing up in the aforementioned musically rich household and proceed to share their passion for jazz pianoforte.
Rosin, jazz bassist and educator, grew up in the metro Detroit area and currently resides in Due east Lansing. He studied under the state's smashing bassists at Western Michigan University and Michigan Country University and has performed extensively throughout the Midwest. In 1997, he toured Commonwealth of australia with the Andrew Speight Quartet and recorded an album that won an Australian Recording Manufacture Association (ARIA) music accolade for "Best Jazz Anthology".
General admission to the March eleven concert is $10 online or at the door. Higher students may show ID for $v off. Tickets and boosted information are available at fountainstreet.org/jazz .
By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org
ArtPrize has barely been open a calendar week and Ti-Stone Moore's piece has already been chosen "moving" and "powerful."
The piece, titled "Flint" is brown water constantly flowing from a vivid white water fountain. The purpose of the piece, signals the ongoing situation in the bulk black town, equally well as, the extreme limitations placed on communities of colour due to flawed infrastructures that privilege the needs of affluent and of the predominantly white communities, according to Moore'south ArtPrize artist statement. In 2014, lead was discovered in the Flintstone h2o system afterwards cost-cut measures. The urban center still does not have safe water to beverage for all of its citizens.
Moore's slice, which is on display every bit part of the Fountain Street Church building ArtPrize Nine exhibition, recently receive the American Civil Liberties Union Honor during a special reception at the church for ArtPrize artists and friends.
"Our Constitution provides for equal protect of the law," said the jurors' statement. "Ceremonious rights laws protect against discrimination based on age, race, religion, gender, disability, and national origin. Ti-Rock Moore's art reveals a stunning example of injustice against people of colour based on the condition of municipal finances in the Urban center of Flint, Michigan. People were poisoned considering of money."
Born and raised in New Orleans' French Quarter, Moore followed disparate career paths earlier emerging in 2014 with protestation works created, in office, in response to the devastating, lingering furnishings of Hurricane Katrina. At that time, Moore renamed herself in homage to colorful and controversial twentieth-century painter Noel Rockmore, a New Yorker turned New Orleanian who, like Moore, had been the child of artists. Moore's cocky-identification (petit or 'tit in local parlance) with the mercurial Rockmore as a kind of spiritual protégé positions her within both local history and artistic traditions, while her work focuses on dismantling the structures that support racism.
In "Flint," the public water fountain has long been a passive symbol of separatism in the United States, one of the more visible manifestations of the Jim Crow era. Although the legal dismantling of the Jim Crow system of apartheid took place more than half a century agone, The Unites States remains deeply divided past race and course, according to a press release from Fountain Street Church. In such a volatile historical moment, the role of the artist is paramount, even essential, every bit a vox that both incites and instructs all of us to not remain complacent and to act upon our beliefs and stand for what is moral and just, the printing release states. If non at present, we might ask ourselves, when? We are in just such a moment that requires—no, demands our attending and our activeness: to either squelch the flames of hatred and intolerance once and for all, or to stand up by and picket as we reduce everything to embers.
Fountain Street Church building is one of a few ArtPrize venues that award cash prizes to its participating artists. Forth with the ACLU Award, which is a $ane,000, the church building also accolade a Social Activity Committee Award, which was presented to Patrick Foran, Bufafalo, New York, for "Land of Exception." "We were fascinated by how Patrick Foran took iconic media imagery and, with an economy of means, presented a triptych full of foreboding. He reminds us of the power of imagery to form our agreement of the news we are bombarded past each day. The scale of the images and the mastery of craft assistance crystallize his powerful argument."
The jurors were Kendall College of Fine art and Pattern Professor Emeritus and artist Darlene Kaczmarczyk and creative person, social activist, and defended ACLU supporter Max Matteson. The jurors also presented two $250 Special Recognition Awards to Rebekah Modrak, of Ann Arbor, for "TheImplicit Jacques Panis on Shinola'due south Quest to Revive American Manufacturing," and Nick Reszet, of Reno, Nevada, for "Transitus."
Twenty-vi artists are featured at Fountain Street Church building, 24 Fountain Ave. NE, all who accept works that represent the venue's theme "Fine art to Change the World: Inspiring Social Justice." The exhibit is open up during regular ArtPrize hours, apex to viii p.m. Monday – Saturday and noon – vi p.yard. Sunday. For more information about Fountain Street Church building and its ArtPrize exhibition, visit http://www.artprize.org/fountain-street-church
by Janice Limbaugh
We came. We crowned. We danced. Nosotros cheered. LaughFest 2015 kicked off with great enthusiasm last dark despite the failed attempt of breaking the Guinness Earth Record for the most people (1,324) wearing paper crowns. Four-hundred eighty-nine of us had a blast trying.
As the nation's just community-wide festival of laughter, 1000 Rapid's Gilda'southward LaughFest is, in and of itself, a good reason to smile, laugh, dance and cheer. When and where else are you lot permitted – invited even – to exist featherbrained for the sake of it? Fiddling kids do information technology so naturally and with perfection while nigh adults need a memo of approval to goof off. And when they practice, they feel great! Having fun is necessary to good wellness. That'southward what's so cool about LaughFest – everyone involved – from the volunteers to the participants to the performers are out to have a practiced time. Laughter is contagious with lingering symptoms of 
happiness to follow.
And so although it was unfortunate that for the get-go fourth dimension in five years, we weren't able to pause a Guinness World Record, I bet nosotros're breaking records for the city with the biggest laughs on world. Get your grin on West Michigan! It's does a body proficient!
Visit world wide web.laughfestgr.org for event data or call 616-735-HAHA (4242).
Source: https://www.wktvjournal.org/tag/fountain-street-church/
0 Response to "Fountain St Church Art Prize Venue by Her Own Hand"
Post a Comment