Vienna plans ‘nod’ to Jenny-Lois Hinckley on April 8

Ruth Hill joins five singer/songwriters commemorating Jenny-Lois Hinckley. Photo by Susan Wilson

Vienna’s “nod” to Jenny-Lois Hinckley is set for 7. p.m. Saturday, April 8, at Vienna Union Hall, 5 Vienna Mountain Road in Vienna.

Singer/songwriters will honor the musical talent of “Jenny” Lois Hinckley, a beloved Vienna neighbor recently deceased. Inspired by the Folk Revival of the early 60s, she adopted the stage name of “Jenny” and wrote and sang songs in a genre she called Academic Folk, blending her roles as a classics professor and a folk singer, a sportscar lady with a station wagon life. She loved sing-a-longs, performed on the VUH stage, and played piano for the Millstream Grange.

Elsie Gawler, Ruth Hill, Stan Keach, and Steve Richardson, will each return to the stage to share their own unique songwriting talents. They’ll be followed with a premiere performance for Vienna by SagittariusRising, the twin talent of Isabelle and Phoebe Rogers, who will be featured at the Sandy River Music Festival (May 27 and 28). Wayne Reynolds will add a song of Vienna which Lois appreciated and encouraged, written by he and his wife, Betsy Corning.

Keach is a writer of songs of historical and contemporary Maine, illustrator of music videos, leader of Sandy River Ramblers, mentor to aspiring musicians, colleague of fellow legends, and entertainer at community events. Growing up in the music of the Gawler family and the Childsplay community of musicians, Elsie Gawler has found her own voice and muse, rooted in the land and branching out in love.

A musical storyteller, Hill writes about real people, her reflections on the sweetness and sorrow of the world around her. She accompanies herself expressively on guitar.

The evening features several prize-winning songwriters. Hill is the 2017 Grand Prize Winner of the Great American Song Contest and winner of the 2016 Maine Songwriter’s Association annual songwriting contest. Keach then won first prize in the 2017 MSA contest and later took first place in the 2022 Podunk Bluegrass Songwriting Contest with a song he co-wrote with Jeff Tripp. SagittariusRising were Grand Prize winners of the 2018 Maine Student Video and Music Festival. Gawler may win your heart and Richardson takes the prize for living closest to the Union Hall.

Tickets cost $15.

For tickets, or more information, visit viennaunionhall.org or call Mark Rains at 207-500-9131.