OLD SAYBROOK—The lineup has been announced for the SummerSings series of casual sing-alongs that bring together acclaimed conductors, professional soloists and anyone who enjoys singing.
SummerSings is co-sponsored by Cappella Cantorum and the Con Brio Choral Society. They bill the six-event series as an opportunity to enjoy choral works without the pressure of preparing for a formal performance.
The series of six 2025 SummerSings events will be held on Mondays in Old Saybrook at the First Church of Christ, 366 Main St., from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Registration begins at 7 p.m.
June 23: Giacomo Puccini’s Messa Di Gloria with Conductor Steve Bruce, Con Brio Choral Society
June 30: Franz Schubert’s Mass in G with Conductor Irina Georieva, Cappella Cantorum
July 7: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem with Conductor Joe D’Eugenio, Greater Middletown Chorale
July 14: Elaine Hagenberg’s “Illuminare” with Conductor Edward Bolkovac, New Haven Chorale
July 21: Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Mass in C with Conductor Chris Shepard, Con Brio Choral Society and CONCORA
July 28: Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols” with Conductor Kristine Pekar, Old Lyme High School
A $20 fee covers the cost of the event, including a musical score for attendees to borrow. The fee for students is $5.
And so it begins again— the Grand Marshal’s car leads the Lyme Independence Day Parade down Cove Rd.
LYME—The parade that began over 60 years ago with a beloved doctor’s pot-and-pan band remains a short and timeless tradition.
There’s not much in the way of rules at Lyme’s Fourth of July Parade, and the clock is more of a suggestion than an absolute. You could even say time stops for this simple slice of Americana.
But nobody told that to Lyme Selectman John Kiker.
“We’re running five minutes late,” he said shortly before the scheduled 10 a.m. start.
The first vintage car set off not much later from the apex of Cove Road with Grand Marshal Bill Hawthorne in the seat of honor. Less than a quarter of an hour later, the final MINI truck cleared the Esther and Bill Irving Bridge below.
Trailing the MINI across the 10-foot span over the cove, Kiker had the answer for those wondering just how much time had elapsed.
“Twelve minutes,” he said.
Lyme First Selectman David Lahm put it this way: “Don’t blink.”
Parade founder Dr. William D. Irving was memorialized in his obituary 10 years ago for starting the tradition “on a whim” in 1958. He stepped down as grand marshal in 2008.
For a half century, Irving maintained the parade “starts promptly at about 11 a.m.”
This time around, the annual town wide celebration got underway promptly at about 10 a.m.
Grand Marshal Bill Hawthorne, 88, served as the town’s treasurer for 26 years and treasurer of the Lyme Fire Company for 15 years. The lifetime resident was a volunteer firefighter from the age of 16 until his 50s. George Willauer served as Hawthorne’s chauffeur.
The Hamburg Fair contingent of Lyme’s Fourth of July Parade prepares to toss candy into the crowds lining Cove Rd. and Rte. 156.
The Lyme Parks and Recreation group brought along candy for paradegoers.
Kids from Camp Claire have been a mainstay in the parade since Irving’s time. The beloved Old Saybrook pediatrician also served as the camp physician.
Campers could be heard singing along to songs like Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA and chanting “USA” along the parade route.
Lyme Ambulance filled out a heavy contingent of first responders as part of the town’s volunteer tradition.
Ambulance volunteers from the back of this Jeep broadcast the message “Lyme Ambulance thanks you for your support” throughout the parade route.
Nancy Kalal, known for working with oxen at her Cranberry Meadow Farm in East Lyme, brought a livestock contingent to the parade. Kalal said it was the first time out in public for Red, a 400-lb, 4-month-old red Holstein in training to be an ox. “Red behaved admirably,” she said afterward in an email. “He seemed to enjoy all the attention, and still pull the cart on my commands.”
Members of Lyme Pollinator Pathway represented butterflies, bees and other pollinators at the parade.
While kids all along the parade route dove into the road for candy, adults looked forward to bulbs of fresh garlic that were handed out again this year.
The Lyme Fire Department came out in force as a perpetual highlight in the community parade.
Enthusiastic honks and beeps reverberated across the cove as this vintage Chrysler brought up the rear of the parade.
Paradegoers on the sunny morning included those of the four-legged variety.
Fire apparatus prepared for the right turn into the Hamburg Fairgrounds as traffic resumed on Route 156, which was closed for the brief duration of the parade.
While Dr. Irving was known to hand out popsicles after the parade, members of the Lyme Recreation Commission laid out free hot dogs, hamburgers, chips and drinks at the Grange.
And that’s it until next year.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated with more information about Red, the ox-in-training.
Witness Stones Old Lyme poets at the Juneteenth celebration. From left to right: Rhonda Ward, Antoinette Brim-Bell, Kate Rushin and Marilyn Nelson. All photos courtesy of Witness Stones Old Lyme.
OLD LYME—The north lawn of the Florence Griswold Museum earlier this month filled with music and poetry as the community gathered for a Juneteenth celebration honoring those who once lived enslaved in the historic town of Lyme.
The Avery Sharpe Quartet performing at the Juneteenth event.
The June 22 event in partnership with the Witness Stones Old Lyme organization featured a powerful performance by renowned bassist and composer Avery Sharpe and his Quartet—Zaccai Curtis on piano, Haneef Nelson on trumpet, and Yoron Israel on drums—whose dynamic jazz rhythms set the tone for an afternoon of remembrance and hope.
Artists gather at the Juneteenth Jazz & Poetry event on Sunday, June 22. Left to right: Poets Marilyn Nelson, Kate Rushin, Rhonda Ward and Antoinette Brim-Bell with musicians Zaccai Curtis, Avery Sharpe, Yoron Israel, and Haneef Nelson
Interwoven with the music were readings by four of Connecticut’s most distinguished poets: Marilyn Nelson, Kate Rushin, Rhonda Ward, and Antoinette Brim-Bell. Their verses, inspired by the lives of those commemorated through the Old Lyme Witness Stones Project, gave voice to the past and called listeners to deeper understanding and reflection.
Audience members enjoy the sounds of live jazz and poetry on the lawn of the Florence Griswold Museum.
The poets, who began their partnership with the Witness Stones Project in 2021, created a cycle of poems that was later published in Poetry magazine. Their verse continues to serve as a poignant tribute to the lives, labor, and humanity of those long forgotten by history.
Photographer William Earle Williams signs copies of the exhibition catalogue for poets Rhonda Ward (left) and Kate Rushin.
Following the program, the Florence Griswold Museum welcomed guests to view Their Kindred Earth: Photographs by William Earle Williams on its closing day. Drawn by his interest in the Witness Stones Project, Williams became the museum’s third artist-in-residence and made stunning photographs that reveal historic sites of enslavement in Old Lyme and elsewhere in Connecticut.
Witness Stones Old Lyme
Between 1670 and 1826 at least 300 enslaved and indentured African Americans and Native Americans labored in the historic town of Lyme.
Today, Witness Stones honor the humanity and the contributions of vital members of our community. The bronze plaques that mark sites of enslavement on Lyme Street restore forgotten history and serve as memorials to those once held here in bondage.
Each of the 60 Witness Stone placed on Lyme Street, McCurdy Road, Old Shore Road, the Sill Lane Green and at the Lyme Public Library includes the name of an enslaved individual, along with details about their lives and circumstances derived from land records, emancipation certificates, and other available historical documents.
An interpretive sign installed on the lawn of the Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library provides a map showing the locations of the small brass plaques that are installed flush with the ground on Lyme Street and elsewhere in the community.
OLD LYME –Photographer Beth Green’s Impressions of Connecticut exhibit will run at Saint Ann’s Episcopal Church through Labor Day.
The exhibit, located in the church’s Griswold Room, is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on Sundays from 8 a.m. to noon.
The church in a press release said the show focuses on scenes of shoreline Connecticut and the Connecticut River Valley, from a bend in the Lieutenant River, to a red barn in snow, to sunlight on the Long Island Sound.
It also includes several of her iconic sports photographs from the 1970s, when Green became known as the first female photographer allowed in a professional sports locker room.
A printed guide to the show includes a QR code for each photograph leading to audio narration by Green. All the photographs are available for sale.
Green’s career includes work as a photographer for international wire services and then as a photo editor for Newsweek magazine. After a decade with the magazine, she switched to architectural and corporate photography with a continued focus on using her photography skills to tell stories from a female perspective.
Green describes herself as a “a very traditional photographer” from the world of film and large format photography.
“With the advent of digital photography, the use of digital manipulations in my work is minimal,” she said. “I believe in the play of light on the subject to create my images. I crop entirely in my camera and turn my camera on the world around me as it exists. Light is my paintbrush and is the tool for my artistic license. My main interest is the image as it is in the world at that moment. There is nothing new in the world, it is how you arrange it in your viewfinder and capture the image forever at that moment.”
Green has served as a guest professor at Rutgers University and Fordham University, and has taught for the New York Institute of Photography.
A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the church.
Barbara Harvey and Texas Jack Hardesty played from the side porch of Lymes’ Youth Service Bureau. Photos courtesy of Cheryl Poirier unless otherwise noted.
OLD LYME —Make Music Old Lyme rang in the summer solstice Saturday evening with tunes up and down Lyme Street as part of the international tradition promoting free music for all.
‘Two of Us’ attracted listeners in front of Patricia Spratt for the Home.
Economic Development Commission member Cheryl Poirier estimated there were at least 300 people strolling the historic district while more than a dozen musical acts entertained from porches, yards and storefronts.
Chris Gregor entertains at Center School, where folks stopped to listen and to buy something to eat from the Lions Club grills.
Revelers strolled a route extending from fire station, where Old Lyme’s Colin Hallahan played cover songs and originals, to the lawn of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme on which the 50-year-old Old Lyme Town Band played selections from its 500-piece catalog.
Old Lyme Town Band puts on a show in front of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme.
Poirier acknowledged the crowd seemed lighter than in previous years, though she said it’s difficult to provide an exact count when attendees are spread out across three-quarters of a mile for two hours.
Howling Hound Dogs wail under the Kousa Dogwood at Cooley Gallery.
Some people walked up and down the street sampling all the sounds, while others sat down to enjoy one band at a time.
The Scoville Jazz Duo became a trio at the former ice cream shop.
The event is produced by the Old Lyme Arts District and the MusicNow Foundation. Launched in France in 1982, Make Music is an international musical festival open to all who would like to participate, and takes place in over 1,000 cities in 120 countries every June 21, the summer solstice.
The Old Lyme Historical Society got interactive with their contribution to ‘Make Music Day.’ Photo courtesy of Edie Twining.
Children made their own music in an activity hosted by the Old Lyme Historical Society during the stroll.
Band of Friends were back on the patio of the Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library.
This year marked the 7th annual Make Music event. Genres represented this year included bluegrass, folk, indie rock, American standards, and pop.
The Celestials croon at Village Shoppes.
The international Make Music phenomenon returns for next year’s summer solstice on Sunday, June 21.
The Lions Club volunteers finish up after a successful event.
