Press Release
For Immediate Release
Jim Scott Benefit Concert, Belmont, July 2
“Singing For the Tree Tops,” a benefit concert July 2nd to preserve the Uplands Silver Maple Forest, will feature renowned folksinger and composer, Jim Scott. This Fourth of July holiday weekend event will celebrate our unique forest on the Belmont/Cambridge line within the Alewife floodplain. Concert sponsors are the Coalition to Preserve the Belmont Uplands, the Friends of Alewife Reservation, and the Social Action Committee of The First Church in Belmont.
Jim Scott will be bringing his rich repertoire from the Paul Winter Consort of “Common Ground” concerts, sung by thousands. He is co-composer of the hauntingly beautiful Missa Gaia, an earth mass with the Consort that has been performed across the country for nearly thirty years. “The Tree and Me” is Jim’s stage musical about saving ancient northwest forests, and he has also written an anthology of peace and ecology, “The Earth and Spirit Songbook.” He has performed with singers and musicians from around the world, including Tracy Chapman, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchel, Jackson Brown, John Denver, Paul Horn, Tom Chapin, Dan Fogelberg , Odetta, and jazz flautist, Paul Horn. He toured Nicaragua with Holly Near and also in Australia, performing at the Institute for Earth Education.
In addition to performing, Jim is a published poet and writer and a teacher. He has written instruction books on guitar techniques. He formed a “world music” group to explore the convergence of jazz, classical, folk and ethnic influences which produced a unique recording, “Instruments of Peace”. Jim often performs in schools and has taught youth workshops and at colleges and universities throughout the nation.
Jim Scott recognizes an American treasure when he sees one, and is donating his substantial talents to help preserve the silver maple forest on the Belmont Uplands. This forested property benefits the area in many ways: one is storm water storage that mitigates flooding. The Coalition to Preserve Belmont Uplands has been fighting a legal battle to protect Belmont, Arlington, and communities downstream from increased flooding expected if the forest is destroyed in order to build a large residential project. Current residents and many visitors to the property that cannot advocate for it include deer, coyote, fox, nearly a hundred bird species, and those creatures that require upland and wetland habitat to sustain their life cycles. (Learn about these forest residents a the adjacent Alewife Reservation, located near the Alewife T stop,)
The concert begins at 7:00 P.M. July 2nd at The First Church in Belmont, 404 Concord Avenue. The hall is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. The #74 bus from Harvard Square stops across the street and there is plenty of free parking. Reserve your spot with an online donation of $12 per admission. Your PayPal receipt or e-mail confirmation will be your ticket: http://www.belmontcoalition.org/events.html. Or tickets may be obtained at the door for a $15 donation. For further information, please contact