Winter Weekend

Patty Cuyler, born in California, educated at Princeton University, long-time resident of Vermont, is an energetic, dynamic workshop leader and choral director and is internationally-renowned for her expertise in teaching Corsican, Georgian and South African music.

She is now VH’s director after being co-director since 1995. Over the years she spear-headed the expansion of the organization’s reach into the four corners of the globe. It was primarily Patty’s vision and labor that shaped Village Harmony’s response to the pandemic and launched our online programs.

In 2005 Patty founded the community world music choir Boston Harmony, and co-founded the Chicago World Music Chorus in 2013. Both of these choruses continue to thrive under the VH umbrella.

Patty has compiled and edited a massive library of transcriptions of traditional Georgian, Balkan and South African music and co-edited two volumes of The Folk Rhythm, four volumes of the Raising the Bar series of book+dvd publications and two book+cd collections of Georgian folk and sacred music.

A native of Asheville NC, Suzannah is a performer, teacher, activist, organizer and community leader. She comes from a family of three generations of traditional Appalachian and British Isles singers, storytellers, artists and dancers

Suzannah has been touring and teaching with VH ensembles for the past twenty five years, both in the USA and abroad. She was a young adult founding member of the VH alumni group, the Starry Mountain Singers. Historically one of VH most popular teachers, she became VH’s acting Board President in 2018 and joined the executive team in 2021.

Currently Suzannah is the founder-director of the Wild Asheville Community Chorus as well as a member of the traditional music faculty at Warren Wilson College.

As an activist she leads educational talks, marches in the streets and works with local people through her non-profit Community Roots, and she acts as a counselor, teacher and organizer with a focus on women and Native liberation within the framework of the international peer-based counseling community, Re-evaluation Counseling.

www.suzannahpark.com

Nicholas Williams is a singer and multi-instrumentalist, a sought-after musician in the traditional music scenes of Québec and New England. Originally from Ottawa, he earned a BFA in world music and composition at Toronto’s York University.

Nicholas moved to the Eastern Townships of Québec in 2000, where he has enjoyed exploring the common grounds of Scandinavian and Celtic roots with the rich Québécois musical tradition.

An accomplished accordion, keyboard and flute player as well as a prolific composer and arranger, Nicholas has been a member of the bands Crowfoot and Genticorum for over two decades, performing, playing for dances and leading instrumental and singing workshops across North America and the UK.

Nicholas first worked with Village Harmony in the summer of 2019. During the ensuing pandemic years he led numerous VH-organized online singing workshops for community choirs and universities, showcasing a number of his choral arrangements of traditional Quebecois folk songs.

Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Lonnie Norwood, Jr. grew up with an unquenchable passion for music and community service. He knew early on that both would be integral parts of his life's work.

Lonnie is a sought-after expert in traditional African American sacred music, educating educators and ensembles on its historical significance, vocal techniques, and the Black liberation aspects within the extensive musical repertoire. Norwood holds workshops frequently with schools, universities, and community choirs. Other educational outreach efforts include exchanges in Nassau, The Bahamas with members of the Bahamas National Youth Choir and Bahamian musicians, Victory Vocals of Accra, Ghana, various choral directors and vocalists in Trinidad and Tobago, Nigerian diasporan musicians, and Vancouver-based SongRoots.

Lonnie is currently acting as president of Village Harmony's board of trustees.

A native of Montpelier, VT, Sinead O’Mahoney has been singing with Village Harmony and Northern Harmony since she was in her mid-teens. She has traveled abroad with Village Harmony in Corsica, France, Switzerland, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and has made three trips to Caucasus Georgia, including an intensive Georgian language course. Sinead has been praised for her sure command of rhythm and clear and efficient teaching style.

Active in Sacred Harp and other shape-note singing throughout New England, Sinead became a co-director of VH’s community choir Boston Harmony in 2018. She has been in charge of programming Village Harmony’s teen programs since 2023.

Sinead earned her bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Vermont in 2016. She currently lives in Boston where she will finish a masters degree program in choral conducting at Boston University this spring.