The Woods Hold All the Secrets

The skein of local history is being untangled and woven on as a collaboration among generations and organizations in the "The Memory Project." This joint enterprise of The Weekend of Chamber Music and the Liberty Museum and Arts Center required the students in Debra Rovitz's 2000-2001 ninth-grade English class at Sullivan West Narrowsburg to write reports on interviews they conducted with elderly area residents regarding their personal recollections of times gone by. Their telling is of sawmills long gone, of bustling hotels and boarding houses, of ice houses and sleigh rides, but also of rationing, and of landing on embattled beaches. There are revelations about cemeteries overlooked by area residents and overgrown by forest. "The woods hold all the secrets," one old-timer reveals.

With the guidance of poet Kaye Cloonan, the freshmen transmuted their interview reports into poems. Extending a tradition of sung history stretching beyond mediaeval troubadours to Homer, the musicians of WCM have devised two concert programs by interweaving quotes from the interviews and the poems with songs and dances from the mid-20th century. They will be performed at the museum by singer Annie Hat, flutist Judith Pearce and mandolinist/guitarist William Anderson on Sunday afternoon November 4th at 2 p.m. and on Saturday afternoon December 15th at 3 p.m., as enhancements to a new section of the ongoing LMAC "Main Street" exhibit.

The Narrowsburg class is serving as a pilot for the project, which will be expanded to other school districts next year. "The Memory Project" is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts.