WAUMC Community Coffee House to feature flute choir, international folk music

The Gutekunst Flute Ensemble and Vocal Tapestry will entertain the public at the Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church Community Coffee House, 1529 Wauwatosa Ave., on Saturday, March 16. A free-will donation will be accepted at the door which opens at 6:45 p.m. with music from 7 – 9 p.m.

The 11-member Gutekunst Flute Ensemble utilizes as many as 19 different instruments of the flute family, including the traditional concert C, alto and bass flutes and piccolos. Members of this Milwaukee-area group represent a wide-range of musical experience and have performed at weddings and other private-parties, organizational fundraisers, corporate events and Mitchell Park Conservatory ("The Domes"). The group’s name -- Gutekunst Flute Ensemble – honors deceased founder Karen Gutekunst, and “gutekunst” means “good art” in German.

Vocal Tapestry founder and director Sheila Feay-Shaw, PhD is a world music specialist who is an associate professor and chair of music education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She founded the original group in 2005 while teaching at UW-Whitewater. Today, Vocal Tapestry performs the music of living cultures around the world and its concerts are part of the UWM Music Department and Peck School of the Arts series. The singers will share selections from the Balkans, Wales, Ireland, Samoa, South Africa, Mozambique, the Maori of New Zealand and Norway at the coffee house.

Parking is available behind the church off Underwood Avenue in the ramp and surface lot across from the fire station. Enter the building through the southwest door (red roof) or the northwest door (handicap accessible) off the upper level of the parking structure.

Light refreshments and a special silent auction will help raise additional funds with all proceeds going to support the church’s annual Appalachia Service Project mission trip. A team of WAUMC young people and adult counselors will head to Tennessee in July where they’ll work to make homes warmer, safer and drier for families in need.

“Everyone is welcome to attend. Gutekunst Flute Ensemble and Vocal Tapestry promise a very diverse and interactive repertoire of music that is sure to please the ear, stir the senses and help audience members banish those Wisconsin winter blahs,” said WAUMC Pastor Sue Burwell.

Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church dates back to 1848 and began with 42-members. Today, the congregation is more than 400 strong and firmly committed to inclusiveness, celebrating a diversity of people, ideas and cultures.

WAUMC offers two Sunday services, Christian education classes for individuals ages 3 through adult, a variety of adult and youth music programs and Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops. The congregation is involved with more than a dozen local, national and international mission outreach efforts.

The Mary of Magdala, Apostle to the Apostles, inclusive Vatican II Catholic Church celebrates Eucharist every Sunday in Wesley Hall at 9:45 a.m. on the WAUMC campus, as of Jan. 13, 2013.

For more information, call 414-453-0700 or visit www.waumc.org.