Wilton Reads: Songs of Ships & Sailors

Please join Wilton Library in the Brubeck Room for a unique concert featuring arrangements from Songs of Ships & Sailors, a songbook written by the Castlebay Singers and published in 2021. The book contains over 160 songs gleaned from the many hundred songs they found in archives at the Maine Folklife center, the Library of Congress, the Helen Hartness Collection, and several others. Julia Lane and Fred Gosbee interpret these songs with their own artistic skill, making them attractive and available to a modern audience while retaining historic integrity and weaving in commentary relevant to the song and its provenance.

Since 1986, Castlebay has been weaving together Maine’s nautical and British Isles legacies, transporting their audience through time and across the Atlantic. Lane and Gosbee have loved and researched traditional music for most of their lives and blend history, legend and experience into their personable performances. Rich and exuberant renditions of traditional and original songs are supported with Celtic harp, 14-string guitar, fiddle & woodwinds. Castlebay has toured the Eastern US and Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Kosovo.

Registration is required. Register on the Wilton Library’s website or call 203.762.6334. For more information, email Andrea Sato.