Diana Jones Headlines Voice Cafe June 11th for Refugee Benefit

Voices Cafe Press Release:

Award winning singer/songwriter Diana Jones will be at Westport’s Voices Café on Saturday evening June 11th, at 8:00pm, in-person and live streamed.  Voices Café is located at The Unitarian Church in Westport, 10 Lyons Plains Road, Westport.  Doors open at 7:30.

This concert is raising funds for the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants’ (CIRI) Apartment Set Up Team who settle refugees in Fairfield County.  CIRI has been settling refugees in Connecticut for 104 years.  The Apartment Set Up Team began 7 years ago and is comprised of volunteers, primarily from 6 area faith communities.

Refugees arrive with just the clothes on their backs. They need housing and everything from a toothbrush, to pots and pans, to a bed. Funds raised by this concert will be used to purchase these items.

Over the past 6 months 72 volunteers have set up 41 apartments in Bridgeport and New Haven for 194 refugees.  The value of the furniture and supplies donated and purchased, estimated at $48,000, is priceless to refugees.

David Vita, Director of Social Justice at The Unitarian Church in Westport said, “World Refugee Day (June 20), the recent surge of Afghan refugees, refugees arriving from countries like Ethiopia, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the imminent arrival of Ukrainian refugees plus Diana Jones’ commitment to this cause made her the logical choice for Voices Café’s June performance.”

Diana Jones’ signature storytelling is at its best with her award-winning Song To A Refugee, reflecting deep empathy for, and common cause with the plight of refugees. Jones is known for giving voice to dispossessed people, and her voice will stay with you, “...at times haunting, at times heart-breaking, and always challenging”, says Down at the Crossroads. 

Jones’s inspiration for Song To A Refugee came through a chance encounter with actress Emma Thompson in New York City, and at a time when Jones was recovering from a serious illness. Although her health was improving, artistically Diana felt at a loss. At the same time, Diana found the harsh reality of what was happening at the US-Mexican border particularly distressing; scenes of mothers separated from their children resonating with her own experience as an adopted child. After the chance meeting with Emma Thompson in a NYC park, Diana Jones was called out of her writer’s block.  Says Jones, “for a lot of us there’s that one person we would love to meet and for me it was Emma… she was so kind and passionate, especially about the refugee crisis.” 

Jones began to write the stories that she found so devastating, one voice at a time. “My own need to ‘re-humanize’ the people who were being dehumanized by governments resulted in a flood of songs,” says Jones. One of the album’s strengths is Jones’ ability to inhabit the characters about whom she is writing, from the woman walking miles to the US border carrying her child, to the young children separated from their parents fleeing their homeland, giving an immediacy to their stories while illuminating the more generic themes within.

Diana Jones has been a major literary voice in contemporary song since her 2006 breakthrough album, My Remembrance of You, which garnered rave reviews. This album set her on a path which would see her release four further critically acclaimed albums: Better Times Will Come (2009), High Atmosphere (2011), Museum Of Appalachia Recordings (2013) and Live In Concert (2016). She has toured the globe, including performances at Cambridge Folk Festival, Galway Arts Festival, Levon Helm’s Ramble in Woodstock, NY, and Bimhuis in Amsterdam, and shared stages with the likes of Richard Thompson, Janis Ian and Mary Gauthier.  

Jones’ progressive, yet historically rich, songs have been recorded by artists including Joan Baez and Gretchen Peters and have won her awards from Kerrville New Folk Festival, New Song Festival and nominations from International Folk Alliance. 

She is rooted in the Appalachian traditions of her birth family and has proven unusually adept at distilling complicated cultural forces down to a particular person in a particular time and place. When Jones was reunited with her birth family in her twenties, she spent time with her Tennessee grandfather. “I decided to throw out my previous songs,” she says, “and go to the woods and ask my grandfather and my ancestors for help.” That decision yielded such powerful songs as “Pretty Girl” and “Pony”, which came from a story told by her grandfather about children removed from their families to go to Indian Schools. 

With Song To A Refugee, Jones continues to give voice to the dispossessed, and bring awareness to social justice issues, taking her place in the lineage of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. “I believe we all want to get involved and give each other hope,” Jones says, “how can any of us look away?”.  Don’t miss this opportunity to see Diana Jones, and support arriving refugees settling in our area. https://www.dianajonesmusic.com/ 

Super Flower Blood Moon Provides Late Night Spectacular

A compilation of last night’s lunar eclipse as it continued to provide a show for all awake to enjoy it. Photos by Nancy Lally for WestportLocal.com

Community Honors Westport Emergency Medical Service during National EMS Week

Westport EMS Press Release:

Westport First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker met with several Westport EMS staff at their Headquarters today and presented them with a proclamation declaring the week of May 15-21 as Emergency Medical Services Week.

Westport EMS Deputy Director Marc Hartog stated that the past couple of years have tested EMS professionals like never before. “The EMT’s and Paramedics of Westport EMS continue to rise to the challenge every day and play a crucial role in maintaining the health of our community. Relieving pain and suffering, caring for sick and injured patients, saving lives is just part of the experience of responding to the public’s calls for help. EMS providers, whether paid or volunteer, take on many crucial roles every day: healthcare professional; emergency manager; social worker; crisis counselor; consoler; caregiver. Abraham Lincoln once said ‘Next to creating a life, the finest think that one can do is to save one’ ”.

Ms. Tooker added that “EMS Week is a chance for our town to recognize the service and sacrifice exhibited by our EMS personnel over the past year, and to express our gratitude for all they continue to do, day in and day out, for our community”.

Morning Weather Report

Today

A chance of showers, with thunderstorms also possible after 5pm. Areas of dense fog before 11am. Otherwise, cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 76. Calm wind becoming southwest around 6 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Tonight

A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Patchy fog after 11pm. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a low around 58. Light south wind. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Tomorrow

A chance of showers between 11am and 2pm, then showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Some of the storms could produce small hail, gusty winds, and heavy rain. Patchy fog before 11am. High near 73. Calm wind becoming south 5 to 9 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible

Tomorrow Night

Showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 8pm. Low around 54. Southwest wind around 6 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.