Groovin' at the Grove: Project Troubador marks 20 years

BY SHAW ISRAEL IZIKSON

roject Troubador celebrated its 20th annual Grove Festival on Saturday, June 27. The nonprofit organization, headquartered in Salisbury, sends musicians, dancers, mimes and other performing artists to developing areas of the world to share experiences and entertainment.

The concert was a celebration for Northwest Corner residents and Troubador supporters. The event is not a fundraiser for Troubador, but a chance to give back to the community. (The price of admission pays for expenses for the bands who perform on the lakefront stage.)

The Grove Festival (held at the Lakeville Town Grove), is held on a grassy field next to the beach. Lake Wononscopomuc provides a captivating background for the performers, who took the stage while the sun was still out and continued playing until dark.

Many audience members arrived before the 5 p.m. start time, including Catherine Chatham and her son, Wyatt Spiegel, 6.

"How many times have I seen the festival through the years? Oh gosh, I can’t count," Chatham said. "I try to see it every year. Having a concert at the Town Grove is priceless."

The first group to perform was The Joint Chiefs, a folk-rock ensemble made up of George Potts of Kent, and husband-and-wife team Eliot Osborn and Louise Lindenmeyr, who are organizers of the festival and founders and board members of Project Troubador.

"This is a public place and a public forum, so in a way this replicates what we are doing around the rest of the world," Lindenmeyr said. "We also started this as a goodwill gesture to the town."

For the trio’s finale, daughters Rosalie and Nicolette Osborn came onstage and performed a tribute to Michael Jackson, singing "I Want You Back."

The next performance was by the University of Connecticut a cappella band A Minor, who performed all-vocal versions of songs by The Beatles, John Lennon, Bryan Adams and The Killers.

One member of the group is from the Northwest Corner, Erik Lindquist of Falls Village.

"I have been coming to the festival since I was little and now I’m excited to play here," Lindquist said. "It’s always exciting to be here."

Au Capoiera took the stage next, performing Afro-Brazilian music and incorporating thrilling gymnastics that moved and grooved the audience to stand up and dance. Children were invited onstage and given sticks that they could use to count out rhythms. And the performers demonstrated capoiera, a martial art that incorporates kick boxing, flips and turns.

Pistolera from Brooklyn, N.Y., finished out the concert with vigorous Latin cumbia rhythms that got the audience dancing in front of the stage until the 9 p.m. end of the festival.

The Mortal Beasts and Deities puppet group wandered around the festival with puppets of Gabriel the Angel, Mona Lisa and other characters from history.