Arts

Sweet sounds of the summer

by Julie Walker
Wednesday Aug 20, 2014

On a typical day in the corner of the South End near Boston Medical Center at Massachusetts Avenue and Harrison Avenue, a symphony of police, ambulance and fire-truck sirens and airplanes roaring overhead fill the air throughout the day and evening. On Thursday night, August 21, two concerts, the final installment of the Worcester Square Area Neighborhood Association's (WSANA) summer concert series and the finale of the Boston Natural Area Network's (BNAN) Sounds of the Garden concert series in Northampton Community Garden at 35 Northampton Street, will fill the area instead with music. Northampton Community Garden's concert will be followed by a barbecue, while WSANA's summer concerts are a popular venue for a picnic dinner. The Northampton Community Garden concert, which runs from 6:30-7:30 PM, features folk-pop singer Kaiti Jones. WSANA will present world music from the International String Trio from 6:45-8:45 PM. Both events are free, open to the public and family-friendly.

The Northampton Community Garden asked to be part of the Sounds of the Garden series in an effort to welcome neighbors to visit. Dana Artz, who does much of the garden's social coordinating, said, "A number of the gardeners talked about wanting to put the 'community' back into community gardening, and we liked the idea of creating an informal social time in our garden. It's been a lot of fun having barbecues every two weeks over the summer, and we wanted to have a keynote event at the end of the season, so we asked BNAN if we could participate in their Sounds of the Garden series." The garden group is also eager to showcase its gazebo's new paint job. The gazebo, which was formerly all white, previously stood in the community garden where 700 Harrison Avenue now stands, but when that property was redeveloped a few years back, the community garden was moved and the gazebo no longer fit. It was transported to the Northampton Community Garden, and longtime gardener Bud Larievy longed to give it a new look. Larievy volunteered his considerable painting expertise, gained at the side of his father and grandfather, with color consultation from his partner of 35 years, Milton Vázquez, who studied art and paints in his spare time. Larievy chose a three-shade color scheme in keeping with local Victorian standards that he felt would look good year-round, not just during the gardening season. "I was very careful to select colors to reflect the four seasons of the garden. We utilized the colors of the sky. The sky is consistent here throughout the four seasons," Larievy explained. He is very excited about inviting the community to enjoy the gazebo and the garden. "We are having a fantastic event. I am thrilled about the event, and it kicks off the new look," Larievy said with pride. According to Northampton Community Garden co-coordinator Jon Pate, the repainting was paid for through membership dues. The garden, formerly an abandoned lot that was converted to one of the South End's 16 community gardens in 1975, has 36 gardens and over 50 volunteers.

Craig Hughes, who booked the music for WSANA's summer concert series, described his search for talent. He said via e-mail, "Finding musicians with broad appeal can be tough, but fortunately Boston is a town jam-packed with great musicians. We found the International String Trio through Berklee College of Music's Music Network, a great resource for local musicians.  In the past year or two we've had classical instrumentalists, opera singers and jazz and salsa bands. It has been a great process and it's wonderful on each concert night to see so many neighbors outside meeting each other, which really is the point of the whole thing."

For more information on Northampton Community Garden, visit http://northamptongarden.strikingly.com/. For further details on WSANA, see https://www.facebook.com/WorcesterSquare, which can be viewed by the public.

Disclosure: the writer is a first-year gardener at Northampton Community Garden and a member of WSANA.