The Continental Harmony Community Chorus is a Western Maine community chorus formed by the Foothills Arts Center in 2000 to bring communities together to celebrate the millennium. In 2000, over 125 adults and children performed in the chorus. People who had never sung in a chorus before joined with veteran singers to make friends and beautiful music.

Since then, this intergenerational chorus has presented several concerts, some tied with a theater component, and each based on a theme: “Music for Neighbors in 2003, “Roots and Branches” in 2002, “Traditions with a Twist” in 2003, and “Songs and Stories of the Foothills” in 2005. If you would like to join the chorus or any of the Foothills community projects, please contact Anne Geller.

Continental Harmony 2000: Based on a proposal we wrote to the American Composers Forum, ACF selected Foothills Arts Center to be the Maine site for a composer commissioning and residency program in celebration of the new millennium. The program was funded by American Composers Forum, National Endowment for the Arts, several national corporate foundations, Maine Community Foundation, and local donors. A local committee chose composer Alexis Alrich of San Francisco to write a piece that reflects the landscape, people, and heritage of our hills and valleys. Over a period of nine months, Alexis spent a total of four weeks meeting people here, hiking our trails, canoeing our streams, and listening to our church choirs and school choruses, orchestras, and fiddlers.

Inspired by all that she saw and experienced, Alexis wrote "Hill in the Country: Maine Suite" for our community. The music captures the classical and fiddling styles of our communities, and the lush, clear harmonies paint a canvas of the colors of our Western Maine world. The piece has sections for the Franklin County Fiddlers (a teen group which was joined by old-time adult fiddlers), the Continental Harmony Community Orchestra and Chorus, and two ballads for soloists and a small vocal ensemble. Local poets provided the lyrics for the choral pieces.

To purchase a CD of the June 2000 community performance of "Hill in the Country: Maine Suite," please contact Anne Geller.

For more information about the national Continental Harmony 2000 projects, please visit www.continentalharmony.org and click on "Millennial Music." Then select "Maine" to see Foothills Arts Center's project.