Please join us for our 8th annual service in memory of those lost on September 11, 2001. We will be honoring the 9/11 FDNY, PAPD, & NYPD Officers and their families.
When:
Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 2pm
Where:
St. Michael’s Cemetery
7202 Astoria Boulevard
East Elmhurst, NY 11370
718.278.3240
Get directions
Thank you for coming to our 4th annual BBQ and celebration of Scott Joplin’s music, which featured special appearances by Vince Giordano and Edward A. Berlin.
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO JOIN US FOR OUR 4TH ANNUAL BBQ AND CELEBRATION OF SCOTT JOPLIN’S MUSIC.
S A T U R D AY
M AY 16, 2009 AT 2:00 PM
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
FREE ADMISSION
Scott Joplin was interred at St. Michael’s Cemetery on April 5th, 1917. Special appearances by:
Vince Giordano – the authority on recreating the sounds of 1920′s and 1930′s jazz, for movies such as Finding Forrester, The Aviator, The Good Shepherd, Revolutionary Road, and more.
Edward A. Berlin – our music director and author of King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era
Contact Us for more information.
On January 24, 2009, the Jazz Bone Trio and the vintage baritone Jeff Miller performed at St. Michael’s Cemetery in a tribute to this American art form honored around the world.
2008 Scott Joplin Concert continued the joy of celebration and renewal. Hundreds attended as Richard Dowling performed magical interpretations of Joplin’s iconic masterpieces, Dr. Berlin provided historical insights, and the Presbyterian Church of St. Albans belted out highlights of Treemonish, Joplin’s only opera. St. Michael’s served BBQ hotdogs and burgers insuring a festive day to all.
See a video of the 6th anniversary 9/11 Memorial Service that took place on Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at 1 P.M.
Watch the video
View the flyer
You will need to download Apple Quicktime to watch the video.
St. Michael’s hosted for the third year the grandest Joplin musical celebration and BBQ on May 12, 2007! World-renowned performers Terry Waldo pianist, clarinetist Orange Kellin and Howard Alden banjoist presented ragtime favorites. Family members of Scott Joplin’s band were in attendance and related stories of their exploits and minstrel past.
Watch the video
View the flyer
You will need to download Apple Quicktime to watch the video.
St. Michael’s celebrates life. We refuse to be a warehouse of the past. Every life is a special gift. The memories that connect us all intersect during visits to cemeteries.
Looking around at a time of burial we join in the sorrow of separation from a loved one yet we gain strength from friends and family members who will recall and rejoice a life lived well.
On the fifth anniversary of the attacks of September 11th we will come together differently. We honor those who voluntarily assumed the role of protectors though normally they sustain our blindness. On that day and at that place their acts saved others who live to recall this day and thank God for their sacrifice. These men and women took on an obligation, responsibility, and duty that few of us would accept. They bound collectively recognizing mutual respect and the realities that trust in each other would be the only means that offered a chance to survive.
At the World Trade Center on that awful day the chances for survival must have seemed forfeited. Yet they advanced into eminent peril accepting the duty and loyalty to those they swore to protect and to each other. None of these individuals were foolds and none were cowards. Their need for self-protection and survival were overcome by their commitment to their oaths and their need to rpotect and save those in danger.
As they served us without hesitation we are obligated to remember each one of these proud men and women. We must congregate at sites of memorials dedicating our presence as tribute to them and to their families left with conflicting memories and unfilled dreams of lives ended too soon.
-Edward Horn
St. Michael’s Cemetery sponsored for a second year a Scott Joplin concert. Performing were three great artists, Ruth Brisbane who has appeared on Broadway and venues around the world, Aaron Diehl a gifted Julliard graduate who has performed with Wynton Marsalis, and Terry Waldo, protégé of the legendary Eubie Blake.
Dr. Edward Berlin author of academic texts and over one hundred articles on Joplin, ragtime and the times presented a discussion featuring slides that highlighted the context of the era. His book “King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era” is the most thoroughly documented study of Joplin’s life and career.
St. Michael’s is dedicated to the belief that life is to be celebrated. We refuse to become a warehouse of the past. Adhering to this and to honor the American icon that was laid to rest in 1917 at the Cemetery the concert was open to the public. Hundreds of Joplin fans and friends of St. Michael’s attended sharing a glorious sunshine, blazing BBQ offering franks, hamburgers, soda and thanks to Harlem Brewery, Sugar Hill Golden Ale. Celeste Beatty of Harlem Brewery is the great granddaughter of an artist who played with Joplin.
It was hard to imagine that anyone in attendance considered the location unusual. People sat on chairs, lay on the grass and danced. Steve & Joy Sabreila entertained everyone by showing off dance steps not seen by many. The joy they experienced translated throughout the crowd with many insisting that we insure future notifications of upcoming events at St. Michael’s.
The great satisfaction for St. Michael’s as sponsor was the refusal by the crowd to allow the concert to end as scheduled. The artists were more than glad to play on. The appreciation of those who attended included five pre need sales, one by a family who said they would never consider a Cemetery that did not offer music, fun and the joy of life!
-Edward Horn
Photos from the Joplin concert:
(Click on pictures to enlarge)
