The 22nd Farewell Reunion featuring Becky Tracy and Keith Murphy is scheduled for Friday May 24, 2024 at Grace Episcopal Church in Sheldon, Vermont. Proceeds from the concert benefit the Tom Sustic Fund, supporting families with children with life-threatening/life-altering conditions including hospitalization and transplantation. The concert is presented by Grace Church as part of the Summer Music at Grace Series and is supported by a variety of friends, families, businesses and organizations including the Black Lantern Inn, Ruth Dennis, Nancy & Rit Divenere, Michael & Patricia Freed-Thall, Lars Larsen, Pam & Jack McCarthy, People's Trust Company, Stone's Throw Pizza, Deborah Travis & Mark Sustic, Vermont Family Network & several anonymous contributors.
Becky Tracy (fiddle) and Keith Murphy (guitar, mandolin, piano and foot percussion) are dynamic performers of traditional music from Newfoundland, Quebec, Ireland, France and beyond. Tracy's fiddling pulses through tasteful arrangements of dance tunes and resonates with beauty on traditional slow airs. Keith's gentle and expressive singing in English and French is balanced by the drive and power of his guitar playing and foot percussion. Combined, they produce a range and richness of sound that is striking. Their playing is seamless, the result of years of playing together and touring across the US, Canada and in Europe. Their repertoire includes Keith's original compositions. He is a prolific tunesmith with a writing style strongly based on traditional dance music. This music is elegantly represented in their duo recording, Golden. Keith and Becky were two thirds of the popular Vermont trio, Nightingale and are veterans of several other bands including Childsplay and Assembly (Keith) and Wild Asparagus (Becky). They can be heard on recordings of all these bands and many others. Becky has made a solo recording and in recent years has been active with Eloise & Co which released their debut album in 2018. Land of Fish and Seals is Keith's most recent solo recording.
The concert benefits the Tom Sustic Fund, sustained through a series of benefit events featuring a wide variety of performers and contributors. After several bone marrow drives and monitoring and searching on registries in North America and Europe, an ideal donor was not located for Tom. After Tom's death, the fund was purposed as on-going support for families with children with life-altering conditions at the Vermont Children's Hospital at the UVM Medical Center and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Distribution of the Fund is managed by the Vermont Family Network with recommendations from specialty staff at the medical centers.
Performance begins at 7pm. A donation is requested, $20 is suggested. Those who attend are asked to bring a dessert to share at intermission. There will not be a meal served prior to the concert this year.
There are no advance tickets, though reservations can be made at mark.sustic@gmail.com.