Manitou Music Festival presents Northwinds Trio and Whit Hill and the Postcards

Press release
The Manitou Music Festival is excited to present a performance by the classical ensemble, The Northwinds Trio comprised of oboe, clarinet and bassoon performers. This combination of instruments offers a rich, yet homogeneous sound. The members of the ensemble: Gretchen Morse, Stephanie Wernli and Melissa Kritzer bring a wealth of experience and training to the music they perform. The program will showcase works by Haydn, Morse, Canteloube, D’Rivera and Milhaud.
Gretchen Morse received her Doctorate in Oboe Performance from Michigan State University in 1994. She plays Oboe and English Horn in the Lansing Symphony and has performed with many other orchestras throughout Michigan and the United States. Stephanie Wernli lives in East Lansing, and in 2006 she completed a three-year fellowship with the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. Stephanie has a Masters of Music from DePaul University, where she studied with Larry Combs. Melissa Kritzer holds degrees from Northwestern University and Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She will begin a Doctor of Musical Arts at Michigan State University in the fall.

The Manitou Music Festival invites you to an evening of fine music and exquisite instrumental performance. The performance is set for Sunday, July 29 at 8 p.m. at the Lake Street Studio Stage in Glen Arbor. Tickets are $18 in advance and $20 at the door.
The next performance in the Festival’s summer-long lineup features Whit Hill and the Postcards. The performance is set for Wednesday August 8 at 8 p.m. at the Lake Street Studio Stage. Whitley Hill was born and raised in New York City, the child of Southern-born actors: a WASP from Mississippi and an Armenian from the moonshine mountains of West Virginia. A child actor herself, she performed at New York’s famed La Mama Theater, with the New York City Shakespeare Festival and the New York City Opera. She is a drama graduate of NYC’s High School for Performing Arts and has a degree in dance from the University of Michigan. For years she was a professional dancer and choreographer; her dances have been commissioned and performed by companies across the country
But she really likes music. As a singer, Whit was a member of the renowned folk band Dick Siegel and the Na-Nas, with whom she toured the country — from New York’s Bottom Line to the Vancouver Music Festival. A prolific songwriter, Whit formed the Postcards in 2001. The band’s two albums, “We Are Here” (2003) and “Farsighted” (2006) have received wide critical acclaim. Whit plays a Martin guitar and loves it very much. Other interesting things about Whitley: Her Armenian grandfather owned a saloon in West Virginia called the Sanitary Lunch. She once unintentionally delivered a friend’s baby by herself. Her dad was on the Sopranos.
Whit Hill and the Postcards was formed in the winter of the year 2001 in order to bring interesting, literate and unexpectedly beautiful alt-country music to the good people of the greater Detroit area. The Postcards are: Singer/songwriter Whitley Hill, Singer/keyboardist/guitarist/husband Al Hill, Bass player Patrick Prouty, and Drummer Chuck Navyac.
Whitley’s husband Al Hill’s credits are too numerous to fully recount here, but in brief, this native son of Ann Arbor has toured the country with his band, the Love Butlers, and is currently music director for soul legend Bettye Lavette with whom he tours internationally. Al’s album “Willie Mae,” co-written with Whitley, was voted Best Blues CD by the Detroit/Windsor Blues Society, and helped the Love Butlers win the 2000 “Best Unsigned Band” competition at Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago. Patrick Prouty is a graduate of Wayne State University’s music department, and also tours with Bettye Lavette. Chuck Navyac is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan Department of music.
Manitou Music Festival’s summer of the arts is delighted to presenting Whit Hill and the Postcards in concert on August 8 at 8 p.m. The performance is at the Lake Street Studio Stage. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. Tickets for both concerts are available at the Glen Arbor Art Association, Lake Street Studios in Glen Arbor, Cedar City Market in Cedar and Oryana Food Cooperative in Traverse City. More information may be found at www.manitoumusicfestival.com.