Two area residents will present An Evening of Music at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Brockport to benefit the Brockport Ecumenical Food Shelf. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, September 28, in the church located at the corner of Main Street and State Street. Admission is package(s) of shelf stable food such as canned soups, fruits, vegetables or meats, pasta, dried beans, and cereal. A freewill offering will also be collected.
Emory Morris, baritone, and Margaret Johnson, piano, will present: “Songs of Travel,” Ralph Vaughan Williams’ settings of nine poems by Robert Louis Stephenson; “My Dark Hands,” Herrmann Reuter’s settings of five poems by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps; and a “Stephen Foster Sampler.”
Morris is professor of chemistry emeritus at The College at Brockport; he retired in May 2009 after teaching biochemistry and other chemistry subjects for 42 years. He currently is a member of the Eastman Rochester Chorus and the Chancel Choir of the Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, and was a 30 year member of the Rochester Bach Festival Chorus; he sang in the Brockport College Community Chorus, and in the Chicago Symphony Chorus, the Madison Civic Chorus, the Cornell University Glee Club, and in church choirs, and has appeared as soloist with some of these groups. He currently studies voice with Professor Robert McIver of the Eastman School of Music.
Johnson earned B.M. and M.M degrees at the Eastman School of Music, studying with Brooks Smith. After a short career teaching vocal music in the Brockport High School, she pursued a career accompanying soloists in venues nationwide, and at Roberts Wesleyan and Ithaca Colleges, and Syracuse University. She taught piano privately for many years. She was for many years the choir director of the First Baptist Church in Brockport, and accompanist for many local high school choirs and the Spencerport Community Chorus. She is again this season accompanying the Spencerport Community Chorus, and the Spencerport High School chorus.
Since September 2011, when the Brockport Food Shelf began offering clients choice of their food items, the number of families asking for food assistance has approximately doubled. In July and in August 2012, the facility, located in St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Brockport, assisted more than 160 households in the 14420 and 14430 zip codes.
The operating budgets are less than needed to keep meeting the current demand throughout the year. Support is provided by Brockport area churches; Foodlink of Rochester; and by food drives by the Boy Scouts, the Postal Service, The College at Brockport, Brockport Crop Walk, local service clubs, and by individuals in the community – both as donors and as volunteers.
