Jazz Quartet to Perform February 12 in Marlborough
 
            For an afternoon of light jazz, there is no need to “Take the A Train.” Just show up at Saint Stephen Lutheran Church, 537 Bolton Street, Marlborough on Sunday, February 12 at 3 p.m. The Rebecca Pagano quartet, a group of well-known area musicians, will entertain with jazz standards.

            The quartet will include Pagano, tenor sax/flute; Alexei Tsiganov, piano, John Hotchkiss, bass, and Charles Weller, drums. Although the final play list is not set, Rebecca indicated a working list includes Cheesecake, Ceora, There Will Never Be Another You, Alice in Wonderland, I Could Write a Book, Voce’ e Eu, Sunday Kind of Love, and I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart.

            “I'm very grateful for this opportunity to bring my music to St. Stephen Luterhan Church and the greater Marlborough community,” Pagano said. “This band is cooking! We can't wait to bring some joy into everyone's day, and leave everyone with hearts and minds full of songs.” 

            Music lovers are asked to bring a donation to the Fresh Start Furniture Bank as their admission fee. NEW kitchen gadgets, such as Pyrex baking dishes, cookie sheets, mixing bowls and cutting boards would be especially welcome along with “gently used” small appliances such as hand mixers and toasters. Cash donations for Fresh Start will also be accepted. With a Valentine’s Day theme, refreshments will be available from 2:45-3 pm, during intermission, and after the concert.

            All four jazz musicians not only perform locally and regionally but also teach their craft.

            Saxophonist and flutist Rebecca Pagano has performed in concert halls and jazz venues throughout New England, including Sanders Theatre, Jordan Hall, Berklee’s David Friend Recital Hall, the POST Underground jazz club, and New Hampshire’s Mount Washington Hotel. She is a founding member of the Boston-area District 5 Jazz Band.  Rebecca earned both an M.M. and an M.M.Ed from The Boston Conservatory, and a B.M.E. from Indiana University. She currently studies jazz in New England Conservatory’s Continuing Education Jazz Program, improvisation with Mike Tucker, and teaches band, jazz band, and music at Wayland Middle School.

            Alexei Tsiganov is a composer, pianist, vibraphonist and educator.  At age seventeen he began playing at St. Petersburg Jazz Philharmonic Hall, the largest jazz club in the Soviet Union. After winning several competitions, in 1991 he came to the United States to continue his career in the motherland of jazz. He has appeared on WERS-Boston radio and  WGBH-Boston. He studied with Gary Burton at Berklee College of Music, and at the New England Conservatory with Charlie Banacos and George Russell. Tsiganov  performed solo and with his group in and around  New England, well-known jazz clubs in New York City, and has toured throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Asia.

            John Hotchkiss grew up in a musical household outside Chicago where he learned to play both jazz and classical double bass. Moving to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music, he performed widely appearing with many jazz artists including Bruce Torff, Mark Kross, David Arteaga, Nat Simpkins, and Jennifer Hruska. He has performed in faculty recitals at the New England Conservatory and Berklee and with Rufus Reid of the Boston Bass Bash. John plays throughout New England as a member the District 5 Jazz Band.  In the classical domain, he has served as principal bass for the Concord Orchestra, the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and MassOpera.

            Charles Weller has worked extensively as a performer, composer and educator. He holds a B.M. from Berklee College of Music, and an M.M. from the New England Conservatory. A native Californian, Weller moved back west after college, where he shared the stage with such artists as Charles McPherson, Mike Wofford, Peter Sprague, Sinne Eeeg, and Gilbert Castellanos, and taught at San Diego State and Cal State San Marcos. Weller studied drums and percussion with Terri Lyne Carrington, Bob Moses, Billy Hart, and others. He currently resides in Boston, and is a faculty member for the New England Conservatory Jazz Prep and Continuing Education, where he teaches private lessons, ensembles, and jazz ear training.
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            The program is the second in a series of Performances at St. Stephen, with one concert offered each season. In the fall, a folk duo performed, and the spring program, still tentative, may feature piano, organ, and handbells.

Waiting until Christmas to open presents delivered weeks in advance can be a challenge, but a group of seafarers vowed to do just that when 31 packages of warm winter clothing and other gifts donated by St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Marlborough arrived in New Haven, CT where merchant marines were in port for a day.

Most people may not think about the shipment of such things as rebar and scrap metal, or even how home heating oil and imported wood get to their final destination, or the sailors whose efforts are a vital part of the process. Seafarers from all over the world are an integral part of bringing these, and other products for New Englanders into New Haven, CT. Seafarers are often isolated and lonely, sometimes without the means to contact family frequently, or purchase needed items while in port. Typical contracts put most at sea for 10 months a year, and they remain a largely forgotten population at the holidays.

Seafarers International House serves this population, and the people of St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Marlborough, have responded for the past seven years by providing Christmas gifts of satchels filled with hand-knit hats and scarves, hooded sweatshirts, shirts, socks, cans of nuts and Christmas cards. This year, church members Melanie Whapham and Judy Kellogg of Marlborough traveled to New Haven to meet with Port Chaplain Ruth Setaro and deliver 31 satchels.

The visitors had the opportunity to meet some of the seafarers. “A crew from the COSMOS was in port for the day, leaving for India,” Melanie said. “These merchant marines will be the best color coordinated sailors on the seas.” The hand knit items matched wonderfully with the purchased sweatshirts and shirts, she noted.  Chaplain Setaro said the sailors were very grateful for the packages. “They were so excited to get these gifts and promised they would wait until Christmas to open them.”

The need for additional warm, hand knit hats continues, and less than 2 weeks after an announcement in church, 30 more hand-knit hats had been donated.

Seafarers International House is an ecumenical mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to seafarers and sojourners, as well as people who are distressed, disadvantaged, and displaced. For more information, check out https:/www.sihnyc.org.

Seven Lutheran chaplains support the Seafarers Port Mission. When requested, they will board merchant marine ships to provide pastoral care and counseling. During the holidays, chaplains distribute the packages to ships that port in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia and southern New England that will be out at sea for Christmas.

For more information about the church, visit www.saintstephenlutheran.com  or the church’s Facebook page. Saint Stephen is a member of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (www.elca.org) . The church is a Reconciling in Christ congregation, inviting people of every gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, marital status, or class. Parishioners come from Marlborough, Hudson, Berlin, Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, Stow, and Bolton.

​Challenged to collect 500 items for their local food pantry during the month of October, the people of St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Marlborough met and exceeded the goal, amassing 663 cans and packages donated to the Hudson Community Food Pantry.
            Their efforts had an additional benefit: as one of the first 100 participants to meet the “Feed the Northeast” goal of the Thrivent Northeast Member Network, St. Stephen was rewarded with a $500 donation from Thrivent to the food pantry. Frank Dutt of Hudson was the team leader who spearheaded the church project.
            Thrivent is a not-for-profit financial services organization headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Appleton, Wisconsin, and founded by Lutherans. Thrivent clients are part of regional member networks that sponsor generosity programs, financial workshops and social events. HCFP is a non-profit organization serving residents of Hudson, Berlin, and Bolton who struggle with food insecurity. 
            For more information about St. Stephen Lutheran Church, visit www.saintstephenlutheran.com  or the church’s Facebook page. Saint Stephen is a member of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (www.elca.org) . The church is a Reconciling in Christ congregation, inviting people of every gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, marital status, or class. Parishioners come from Marlborough, Hudson, Berlin, Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, Shrewsbury, Sudbury, Stow, and Bolton.