MultiFaith Festival
(Nonprofit Collaboration)




MultiFaith Festival Phone: 978-774-3164
c/o Tabernacle Church Email: Office@tabernaclechurch.org
50 Washington Street Church Web Site: tabernaclechurch.org
Salem, MA 01970 MultiFaith Festival Web Site: multifaithfest.com
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: 




MULTIFAITH FESTIVAL BEING HELD IN SALEM, MA ON SUNDAY JUNE 24, 2018


SALEM, MA – The Second Annual MultiFaith Festival is being held in Salem, MA on Sunday, June 24, 2018 from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The MultiFaith Festival is a nonprofit collaboration of people of all faiths coming together to share who they are and what they believe during an affirming cross-cultural event. The goal of the MultiFaith Festival is to increase understanding across religious platforms and engage with others of different faith communities.
MultiFaith activities will take place at the Tabernacle Church located at 50 Washington Street in Salem and along Federal Street between Washington Street and North Street. Musical groups performing at the MultiFaith Festival include the Nour Ensemble, the MultiFaith Band and participatory Sacred Harp singing. As the event is family-friendly, children will be treated to bouncy-house fun and face-painting. Admission to the MultiFaith Festival is free to the public. Further information about the festival can be obtained at multifaithfest.com.
Participating faith organizations include the Catholic Collaborative in Salem, Church of Jesus Christ in Lynnfield, Clifton Lutheran Church in Marblehead, Islamic Society of the North Shore in Lynn, Seventh Day Adventist Church in Salem, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Salem, Tabernacle Church in Salem, Temple Sinai in Marblehead, Temple Tiferet Shalom in Peabody and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Salem Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. Additional support for the MultiFaith Festival has been provided by Cabot Wealth Management, 104.9FM Keep it Local, Murphy Funeral Home, Steve's Quality Market and Bill’s Auto Clinic.

We are pleased and proud to announce we have received a $1500 grant from the Salem Cultural Council, through the Massachusetts Cultural Council. We are humbled and overjoyed at the support.  The money will be applied to our cultural music performances.

Help plan the 2nd Annual Multi-Faith Festival on the North Shore for 2018.  Last year's event on June 4, 2017 planted a seed in the hearts of hundreds, and now it's time to set our sights on the future- and celebrate all of G-d's faiths in harmony.

What:  Multi-Faith Festival 2018 planning meeting (#1)
Where:  Tabernacle Congregational Church, 50 Washington Street, Salem, MA
When:  Monday, September 11 at 7 PM  
Who:  Representatives of all faiths
Why:  To celebrate religious freedom, peace on earth, goodwill to our neighbors

First order of business will be to pick a date(s) and place for MFF 2018.
We will also review the TV news coverage of MFF 2017.

Let's pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and gather to create something beautiful and meaningful.  There's work to do- the harvest is plenty, the workers are few.  So come join in gathering the harvest, and share a piece of your faith with a friend you have yet to meet.

<http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/06/04/first-multi-faith-festival-salem/>
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Dana Hersey from North Shore's 104.9 FM interviewed some of the Multi-Faith Festival committee members.
Do enjoy!
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KHARIS Chamber Players is a multi-faceted Chamber Music group performing a wide array of classical repertoire for Piano, Winds and Strings. The musicians joining together for this concert are active solo and chamber performers in the Boston area and beyond and have collaborated for several years, performing in various formations (quartets, trios, duos and occasional solos or quintets) in many different venues. The French repertoire for Piano and Winds includes some of the finest music ever written for wind instruments during the late 19th century - early 20th century and beyond. An “Aubade” (“Alborada” in Spanish) was a love poem meant to be sung at dawn by the “troubadours”, medieval poets of Southern France - as opposed to a “Serenade”, sung in the evening. French composers started using the term again for various musical compositions in the 19th and 20th century. Camille Saint-Saens' lively Caprice on Danish and Russian Airs, Op.79, for Piano and Winds, Olivier Messiaen’s Abîme des Oiseaux from the Quartet for the End of Time, Claude Debussy’s Syrinx for solo Flute, Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane Op.65, and the rarely heard Darius Milhaud’s Sonate Op. 47 for Piano and Winds are all stellar examples of that repertoire. 

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, flutist Meghan Jacoby has performed as a chamber and orchestral musician throughout the US, England, Italy, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, and Cuba. Currently, she freelances throughout the greater Boston area and has performed with the Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Symphony by the Sea, and with the Portland, Indian Hill, Cape Cod, New Bedford, Atlantic, and Cape Ann Symphony Orchestras. Meghan has also performed with the Boston-area chamber groups Callithumpian Consort, Radius Ensemble, and the Vento Chiaro Woodwind Quintet. A new music enthusiast, Meghan has performed at the New Music Forum's Festival of Contemporary Music in Oakland, California, the Society of Composers, Inc. convention in New York, New Music Brandeis, Boston New Music Initiative, Center for New Music in San Francisco, and Brave New Works. She has also been a guest artist at the International Festival of Flutists in Lima, Peru. Meghan was a three-time finalist in Boston’s James Pappoutsakis Memorial Flute Competition and was named 2nd Prize Winner in the 2012 Kentucky Flute Society’s Piccolo Competition. Meghan served on the faculty at the Longy School of Music of Bard College’s Community Programs for seven years and currently is on faculty at Powers Music School, Winchester Community Music School, Phillips Academy Andover, Concord Academy, and the Cremona International Music Academy in Cremona, Italy. Her primary teachers include Linda Toote, Robert Willoughby, and Trevor Wye. Meghan holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from Boston University.

Ben Fox serves as Principal Oboist of the Marsh Chapel Collegium, whose Bach Cantata Series is broadcast on WBUR and online. He is an active freelancer, having made appearances with the Boston Philharmonic, Portland Symphony, Vermont Symphony, Plymouth Philharmonic, Charleston Symphony, and many other orchestras around the country. Ben was invited to join the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra for their 2013-14 season, playing Associate Principal Oboe and English Horn. He is also Music Director of the Boston Zelenka Project, an ensemble devoted to performing the little-known chamber works of Jan Dismas Zelenka and his Baroque contemporaries. Ben has premiered pieces by Mary Montgomery Koppel and Vartan Aghababian and is a regular member of new-music group the Callithumpian Consort, with whom he has recorded on the Tzadik and Mode labels. Ben Fox holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Oboe Performance from Boston University, a Master of Music degree in Oboe Performance from New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Arts in both Oboe Performance and Applied Mathematics from Oberlin College in Ohio. His principal teachers include John Ferrillo and James Caldwell

Todd Brunel is an innovative, critically acclaimed clarinetist who leads a dual life as a cross-over classical and jazz musician. "Tremendous virtuosity and heart," the Boston Globe. He has played principal clarinet with Opera Ebony of Harlem, the Bulgarian Virtuosi, ALEA III, the Andover Chamber Players and many New York and Boston area orchestras. As a sought after advocate of contemporary musical styles, he has premiered works by composers including Rick Sowash, George Brunner, the Alta Voz composers Alliance, Vuk Kulenovic and Vache Sharyfyan. Brunel's numerous guest appearances include: Carnegie Hall, Harvard University, the Academy of Music Art and Dance (Bulgaria), the Manhattan School, CBGB's Gallery, The SEAMUS Festival, the National Black Arts Festival (with Lilli Lewis) and the Montreal Jazz Festival. Brunel produced the critically acclaimed 'Vortex Series for improvisational music, which was the jazz "Pick of the week" in the Boston Phoenix and Boston Globe. Brunel received a Bachelors of Music degree in clarinet performance from the Boston Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Atilio Poto and Pasquale Cardillo. He holds a Master of Music from the Brooklyn College Conservatory where he was a graduate assistant to Paul Shelden. 

​Natacha Rist is a Franco-American pianist born and raised in France. An active freelance soloist and collaborative pianist, Natacha performs solo and chamber music in the New England area and in France, and is a founding member of Kharis Chamber Players. She has performed in Boston at the French Library, First and Second Church, Kaji Aso Studio, U-Mass Boston; in France, at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Maison Henri Heine, Confluences and Eglise Americaine in Paris, Chateau de Ville-D'Avray, Chateau de Boffres, and in festivals at Magnat-L’Etrange, Lavaudieu, Issigeac, and Cordes, among other venues. As a professional instrumental, vocal and choral accompanist on piano, harpsichord and organ, she is employed in many venues and studios, both privately and in several Boston area music schools and churches. She currently serves as organist at Tabernacle Congregational Church in Salem. She also teaches Piano, Chamber music, and serves as staff accompanist at Powers Music School in Belmont, and teaches privately a variety of students, from age four to ninety nine, at her Jamaica Plain studio. She holds her Diploma in Piano Performance from the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris (founded by renowned French pianist Alfred Cortot), and she holds a Master of Music degree in Vocal Accompanying from Boston University. Her teachers have included Marian Rybicki in Paris (Heinrich Neuhaus Russian School via Poland), Allen Rogers, Anthony DiBonaventura, Mark Kroll and Lois Shapiro in Boston. 

​1.  None of us is perfect.  And we seek to understand each other better through our love and worship of the Divine.  We are not here to argue, but we are here to learn from one another.
2.  Be lighthearted, be joyful, be of great understanding- one to the other.
3.  Share your love of God with each other, by condemning none.
4.  Show people how to pray, with the Rosary Beads, with the Teflin, with those things that have been proved to be of great help for hundreds and thousands of years.
5.  Listen to each other, more than you speak
6.  Give thanks to God for such a wonderful day.
7.  Pray for understanding when conflicts arise.  No one should disturb the peace, nor try to convert anyone.
8.  Religious icons should be small, to fit on a tabletop.  None shall be free standing.
9.  No political signs or symbols please 
10.  Love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself.

Salem, Massachusetts- An unique gathering of diverse faiths and
musicians will take place on Sunday afternoon, June 4 from Noon to 6
PM at Tabernacle Congregational Church, 50 Washington Street.  A
committed group of volunteers has been working on producing the first
annual Multi-Faith Festival - where all faiths will come and gather to
celebrate religious freedom.  The goal is to stand up for everyone’s
right to worship God in the way they see fit- be it Muslim, Jewish,
Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or anyone else.

One of the organizers, Mike Boudo, said “More than a dozen houses of
worship will have booths to talk and explain how they worship.
Musicians will play an eclectic mix of folk, jazz, Middle Eastern,
chamber music, and Sacred Harp singing.  Even if you’re not too
faithful, you’ll want to enjoy the musical line-up, and make new
friends.”

Kids activities, a bouncy house, and food trucks will be part of it.
And at 3 PM, the most important element the whole event- everyone will
gather in their congregations and pray in their own way- giving thanks
and praise for religious freedom.

“We celebrate all things except our many faiths. It is time we start
to do so,” said Fawaz Abusharkh from the Islamic Society of the North
Shore in Lynn.   “The goal is to learn , understand and educate each
other.  People are curious by nature so this event will be a success."

The Salem Catholic Collaborative, the Alpha group, Temple B’Nai
Abraham, St. Peter’s Episcopal church, St. Nicholas American Orthodox
Church and many faiths are participating.

You don’t need a ticket to attend the Multi-Faith Festival, but the
organizers are asking for donations through Go Fund Me.  “Our
corporate Sponsors- Cabot Wealth Management and 104.9 FM North Shore
have been terrific.  A program like this could easily fetch $30-$50 a
ticket, but some festival-goers can’t pay that price.  So, we are
asking people who are able, to help us reach our budget goal through
the website www.gofundme.com/multifaith
All donations are tax deductible,” said Boudo.


The musical line-up is outstanding.  There will be an opportunity at 1
PM on June 4 for everyone to try their hand singing in the same style
of the American revolutionaries with a Sacred Harp singing demo.
These songs provided many women and men of the 1770’s the backbone
needed to found a new country, with religious freedom as its anchor.
And what better way to celebrate that in song!

Boston’s Either/Orchestra will give us an international taste of
blistering jazz, as they feature the Armenian stylings of Nerses
Nalbandian.  New England folk artist Tim Eriksen will be joined by
fiddler Zoe Barrow to enliven the crowd.  The Nour Ensemble will kick
things off with a blend of Middle Eastern cultural music.  The Paulist
Center Liturgical Dancers will pray with graceful choreography.  And
the entire event will be capped by the Kharis Chamber players
performing French Aubade.  A concert of French music for piano and
winds featuring musical selections by Debussy, Faure, Milhaud, and
Saint-Saens.

For more information go to:  www.multifaithfest.com

Or:  facebook.com/multifaithfest
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In order to make this the best Multi-Faith Festival ever, we will need everyone's support.  Please go to our Go Fund Me page and if you have the means, please make a donation.  All funds will go 100% to putting the Festival on.  No church, or organizer will make any money- it's all for the wonderful musicians, the police and logistical support, sound/stage, to make sure this goes smoothly on Sunday, June 4 from Noon to 6 PM.
here's the Go Fund Me site:
https://www.gofundme.com/multifaith