Harmony Society Music is Focus of Hidden Sounds Program
See and hear the musical legacy left by the Harmony Society at the Hidden Sounds Musical Program on Saturday, July 16, 2 to 4 p.m. at the Granary at Old Economy
Village, 1401 Church St., Ambridge, PA 15003. The event, jointly sponsored by the Harmony Museum, Harmony, PA and Old Economy Village, will include Harmonist music, recently released by Grammy-Award-winning cellist Eugene Friesen, along with a behind-the-scenes look of some of the musical heritage of the Harmony Society. The event is free, but reservations are requested via e-mail to Friends of Old Economy, c-jaweber@pa.gov. Light refreshments will be served.
“Old Economy is lucky to have the musical archives of the Harmony Society,” says Sarah Buffington, Curator at Old Economy Village. “For this event visitors can view items from those archives, as well as some of the mid-19th century musical instruments played at Harmony Society concerts.”
The Hidden Sounds Musical Program will also showcase Harmony Society music recorded by cellist Eugene Friesen in the wine cellar built by the Harmonists in 1809, located in Harmony, PA. “Friesen performed a concert in the Harmony Museum wine cellar several years ago,” says Harmony Museum board member Andrew Orient, “and was so inspired by the unique acoustics of space he returned to Harmony to record a compact disk of Harmonist music. At the Hidden Sounds Musical Program we are celebrating the release of this recorded music in digital form.”
Friesen is performing in concert the same weekend in New Harmony, Indiana, the second home of the Harmony Society. Efforts are underway to bring the Grammy-Award winning cellist to western Pennsylvania for live performances of this Harmonist music in Harmony and Old Economy in the future.
The Hidden Sounds Musical Program is one of several cooperative efforts between the three “homes” of the Harmony Society. “We are glad to work with the Harmony Museum for the return of our behind-the-scenes programming at Old Economy Village,” says Jason Weber, Executive Director of Friends of Old Economy. “Many people know of the Harmony Society because of the religion, industry, and agriculture. But they also were very musical, and it is wonderful that we can continue to bring that musical legacy to life.” Guests to the event will see instruments from the museum collection, view music written by members of the society, and have a chance to play a square grand piano in the historic Feast Hall building.
The Harmony Society became one of 19th century America’s most successful communal groups in various businesses, especially in production of woolens and linens. They founded the borough of Harmony in Butler County in 1804, and after ten years of progress, they relocated to Indiana Territory to found the town of New Harmony. The Harmony Society returned to Pa. in 1824 to establish their final home, Economy, (now Ambridge, Pa.) along the Ohio River. The society started practicing celibacy while in Harmony, and as members aged and died, the Society was dissolved in 1905.
Old Economy Village is a gemstone site of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Old Economy Village preserves and presents the life, thought, and material culture of the Harmony Society, a highly successful and entrepreneurial 19th century religious community. Old Economy Village is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and is actively supported by the Friends of Old Economy Village which is a non-profit community-based organization. It is part of Ambridge’s Economy National Historic District and is among the region’s most important historic sites.
