Cultural Council Sponsors Free Concert at the Wellfleet Preservation Hall

by Jennifer Stratton

The Wellfleet Cultural Council, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC), will sponsor a free concert featuring me, singer/songwriter Jennifer Stratton. The concert will be held at the recently renovated Wellfleet Preservation Hall, located on Main Street in Wellfleet, MA. The hall is a beautiful space for the community to experience classes, discussions, and performances.

The concert will be held on Saturday, July 14 from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. All are welcome.

I've been writing songs and performing for the past 25 years. Over the last 15 years, I've performed at coffee houses, restaurants, bars, and fundraisers on and around Cape Cod. My new CD, Fly High, recently came out and one of the songs on it entitled "Magic" placed third at the Eventide Songwriting Festival in 2011.

When people ask where I get my songwriting inspiration from, I tell them it's a very organic process. I experiment with some melodies on the guitar, get a few words in my head and before you know it a song is born. It doesn't always happen as easily as it sounds. My style falls in to the singer/songwriter, contemporary folk/ rock genre.

While studying and working in Papua New Guinea, Israel, and Brazil, I wrote and played songs about my life experiences. In Brazil, I hooked up with local musicians to form a Latin fusion band that played both American and Brazilian music.

The Wellfleet Cultural Council is one of MCC's Local Cultural Councils (LCC). The LCC Program is the largest grassroots cultural funding network in the nation, supporting thousands of community-based projects in the arts, humanities, and sciences annually. There are 329 councils, serving all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns.

Each year, local councils award more than $2 million in grants to more than 5,000 cultural programs statewide. These include school field trips, after-school programs, concerts, festivals, lectures, theater, dance, music, and film.

LCC projects take place in schools, community centers, libraries, elder care facilities, town halls, parks, and wherever communities come together. Grants from LCCs are usually reimbursement-based, meaning applicants expend their own money, and if approved for a grant they submit paperwork for reimbursement.

My grant application was submitted last fall and accepted in January. My intent was to have a concert that would be open for everyone in the community. I love connecting with my audiences, which is one of the main reasons I like to perform. Music is something that brings people together.

Receiving this grant allows me to get paid for displaying her songwriting, singing and playing talents and for the public to come for free. People appreciate free events. It helps make the arts accessible to all, which in my mind is how it should always be. Art, music, dance, and literature are all inherent parts of our shared culture, and everyone should be a part of it.

So come on out and hear me – Jennifer Stratton – play live and in concert on July 14. I'll be performing with my husband Don Boivin, and Ann Belsito on percussion. For more information, and to hear samples of my music, please visit www.jenniferstratton.net .

For more information on the Massachusetts Cultural Council and LCC grants, please visit www.massculturalcouncil.org .

Energetic and engaging, Jennifer Stratton is a born performer. She also works as a visual artist, expressive arts facilitator and life coach.

A Cape Cod-based singer/songwriter/guitarist, Jennifer performs original blues-influenced folk/rock music, as well as many favorite covers, solo and with her band in venues all over the Cape and eastern Massachusetts. The band includes a bass player, percussionist, and Jennifer's husband Don Boivin on guitar and back-up vocals.

She has been writing and performing for 20 years. Her CD Fly High came out in 2010.

For samples of Jennifer's music, visit www.jenniferstratton.net. To buy a copy of Fly High, visit http://www.cdbaby.com and type Jennifer Stratton into the search bar.