Entertainment: Gordon Bok Performs At Camden Public Library March 28th

Entertainment: Gordon Bok Performs At Camden Public Library March 28th
Editor: David Mills

Camden, ME - Tomorrow night, March 28th, Gordon Bok will be performing at the Camden Public Library from 4pm to 7pm. Gordon Bok is a Musician/Singer who first music in his own dooryard. His family sang Scots, German, Italian, Australian and American traditional and popular songs -- all learned in places they had lived. As he began to work the boats along his coast, he heard the songs of the Maritimes, and ballads and chanteys from around the world. "But at home, Hank Williams was our kitchen-music, especially in coastal Maine," he said, "so I was singing those songs too, with Kendall Morse and others around home."

When he couldn't find songs that matched his own experiences or needs, he began to write his own, and has kept up a lively flow of poems, songs, stories, choral and instrumental works. One Maine chorus took one of Gordon's choral works on tour in Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece as part of their American repertoire. He reinvented and developed the cantefable/ "folk-opera" form which is now widely used by storytellers and musicians in this country.

He has been a singer and caretaker of the music and liturgy of the Kalmyk Mongolians who immigrated to America in the 1950s, maintaining and circulating an extensive collection of their surviving music among their descendants.

Gordon has written, sung, and helped to preserve the heritage of of the working waterman of the Northeast, hence his honorary Doctorate from the Maine Maritime Academy. He also received the Blue Ribbon award from the American Film Festival for original music and lyrics performed by him and other local musicians for the documentary film "Coaster: The Adventure of the John F. Leavitt."

We hope you all will be able to attend this great concert at the Camden Public Library by Gordon Bok from 4pm to 7pm.