WILTON – High Mowing School recently announced the next event in its 2018 Music on the Hill benefit concert series.

The St. Patrick’s Day Feast: Music and Lore features traditional Celtic songs to benefit Friends of Waldorf Education, an organization that provides emergency and trauma education at three refugee camps in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq near Dohuk.

These camps are home to nearly 50,000 refugees, and many of whom are orphaned children who have been deeply traumatized after witnessing horrific violence against their families. FWE works with about 600 children each day, using art and movement to help them overcome these traumas.

Proceeds from this concert will benefit FWE’s kindergarten program and provide fresh fruit for the children. These pilot programs cost $300 per month.

The Music on the Hill benefit concert features a number of local performers, including Leslie Vogel on the fiddle/accordion/vocals and Dan McElreavy as orator. They will be joined by fiddles, Irish pipes, flute, drums, hurdy gurdy, cello, guitar and celtic harp. The program includes McElreavy’s telling of stories and ballads, each of which will be followed by music. Musicians will perform traditional celtic songs and dances as well as works by O’Carolan and Playford.

“Being a bit Scottish and Irish myself, I have long been drawn to Celtic music, mythology and lore,” said cellist and co-organizer of the event Andrew Koutroubas. “They really know how to bring a story to life through song, something I hope we can emulate in this performance.”

In addition, the High Mowing Cabin Club will be selling refreshments to benefit FWE. The Cabin Club is run by a group of High Mowing students whose focus is to raise awareness of poverty and other world issues, and to promote peace. The Cabin was inspired by David Anderson, a 1996 High Mowing alumnus, who died of leukemia in the summer of 1998. David described his one-room cabin home poetically in his diary:

“This house is a sacred place. No cruel words will be spoken, no cruel acts will be committed within its walls. May the simple beauty of this house inspire the simple beauty of your soul to shine brightly. Welcome to my house.”

This Music on the Hill benefit concert aims to help children halfway around the world recapture some of that home sentiment.

High Mowing School is located at 222 Isaac Frye Highway in Wilton.

For more information, call 603-654-2391.