Since the spring of 2017, Around Hear — Marji Gere [violin] and Dan Sedgwick [piano] — has been offering highly accessible, regular time and space for people from a wide spectrum of life experiences to gather, listen, learn, and create with a shared spirit of friendliness, openness, and fun. This time and space comes in the shapes of free community concerts, arts-based social and educational events, and free individual music lessons for low-income residents of Somerville, Massachusetts.

Around Hear community concerts happen at the Mystic Activity Center, based in the Somerville Housing Authority, and are a treat for the eyes, ears, and appetites: at each hour-long program we serve refreshments or a meal, and chamber music is often interwoven with elements of theater, puppetry, or dance.

Knowing that not everyone does their best listening sitting still, we welcome and encourage audience members to respond to the music via quiet art-making, writing, and movement, and provide materials and space for that expression.