Summer event commences this Sunday at Taylor House

RACHEL RAVINA/BAYSIDE GAZETTE
The Calvin B. Taylor House Museum in Berlin opened on May 25 for the 2019 summer season. Tours are available from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays until Oct. 30.

By Rachel Ravina, Staff Writer

(June 7, 2019) Music lovers should be prepared to grab a chair and be ready to listen to some live music this summer during this summer’s free Concert on the Lawn series at the Calvin B. Taylor House Museum in Berlin.

“We’re pleased to be presenting concerts for so long,” Melissa Reid, president of the museum’s board of directors, said. “We are fortunate that we were sort of the beginning of this idea free concerts in Berlin.”

Reid said the museum, which pioneered the idea of free concerts in Berlin, has been holding the roughly hour-long concerts for more than 20 years.

“When those concerts were first started … there really wasn’t music happening in Berlin per se, because when the Taylor House Museum first opened, it was about the same time the Atlantic Hotel was being renovated, and at that point, Berlin had not really hit the renaissance that we see now,” she said.

She added the Concert on the Lawn series has “come to be sort of a Berlin tradition in the summertime.”

Concertgoers can hear John O’Dell and Windy Ridge, a bluegrass band, which will open the series with its Sunday performance at 6 p.m.

“We’ll want to have a good time and enjoy the crowd, and let the crowd have a good time. We aim to please,” said musician John O’Dell.

O’Dell said his group plays mostly “bluegrass, [and] some adaptable older country-style music.”

While the concert is free, Reid said attendees are welcome to contribute a donation to the museum.

“It’s an opportunity for people in our community and visiting tourists to come and sit on a beautiful lawn of this amazing historic house, right in the middle of downtown Berlin,” she said. “When you think about it, I mean we have a beautiful situation, so we like to open it up as much as possible to the community for free events.”

While Reid said the museum’s mission is not only to “present and preserve the history of Berlin,” she said it is also important that the public get to take advantage of the property, including the lawn.

Additionally, Reid hopes the concerts help showcase museum itself.

For those that have never been to the Taylor House museum, Reid hopes the concert will help persuade people to do so.

“We’re lucky in that the interiors of the museum serve two purposes: there’s the historic house, but we also have the upstairs exhibit space which gives us the flexibility to tell the story of Berlin, and so we feel the concert on the lawn is a great sort of introduction to experiencing that property,” she said.

Concerts will be held on the second Sunday of each month throughout the summer on July 14, Aug. 11 and Sept. 8, according to Berlin Main Street. Most of the acts will be acoustic, Reid said.

For the upcoming concerts held in July, August and September, peach slushies’ will be available for purchase, Reid said.

“We hope everyone comes out to enjoy it,” Reid said.