Singing in Spring with Makefield Friends
Paige Melton
Makefield Friends Meeting held its first Spring Celebration Concert on an early April Saturday afternoon featuring the music of Paige Melton.
We love music at Makefield, but we aren’t musical folks, but we do devote the fifth Sunday’s Spiritual Enrichment program throughout the year to music choices we all send in using YouTube with a theme in mind. We’ve listened to music ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to U2.
Late last fall we thought of having a concert that would showcase our caretaker/tenant’s musical talent and beautiful singing voice. Paige Melton kindly agreed! We decided on a Spring event. Spring represents renewal, vitality, the appreciation of nature’s beauty, and the miracle of life sprouting forth in all forms.
We gave Paige a copy of our song book, Worship In Song: A Quaker Hymnal, and a few requests from folk and popular genres. She had free rein to choose from her own repertoire. She learned and exquisitely performed many songs and spirituals.
Paige has a pleasant and inclusive manner of performance plus an intuitive way of addressing her audience. Before long people were singing and humming along. There were even some short pauses for comments after a few of the songs. Paige did something new to me. She opened and closed the concert with rousing versions of I’ve Got Peace Like A River.
No one seemed in a rush to leave because It was such an uplifting positive experience of community. The audience participation was a delight that made it a lovely Light-filled way to spend an early spring afternoon.
Paige performs at local venues and those on the Main Line on weekends. During the week she interns at Mt Sinai in Manhattan as a Music Therapist in two of their departments and sees some patients as private clients. She’s one multi-talented and kind-hearted woman!