Winter Weekend

Patty Cuyler, born in California, educated at Princeton University, long-time resident of Vermont, is an energetic, dynamic workshop leader and choral director and is internationally-renowned for her expertise in teaching Corsican, Georgian and South African music.

She is now VH’s director after being co-director since 1995. Over the years she spear-headed the expansion of the organization’s reach into the four corners of the globe. It was primarily Patty’s vision and labor that shaped Village Harmony’s response to the pandemic and launched our online programs.

In 2005 Patty founded the community world music choir Boston Harmony, and with Mollie Stone founded the Chicago World Music Chorus in 2013. Both of these choruses continue to thrive under the VH umbrella.

Patty has compiled and edited a massive library of transcriptions of traditional Georgian, Balkan and South African music and co-edited two volumes of The Folk Rhythm, four volumes of the Raising the Bar series of book+dvd publications and two book+cd collections of Georgian folk and sacred music.

A native of Asheville NC, Suzannah is a performer, teacher, activist, organizer and community leader. She comes from a family of three generations of traditional Appalachian and British Isles singers, storytellers, artists and dancers

Suzannah has been touring and teaching for the past twenty five years, both in the USA and abroad. She began singing with VH in 1994 and touring with Northern Harmony 1996. One of VH most popular teachers since 2000, she became our acting Board President in 2018 and joined the executive team in 2021.

Founder and director of the Wild Asheville Community Chorus—now under the umbrella of VH—Suzannah was also a founding member of VH alumni group, the Starry Mountain Singers. She is also a member of the traditional music faculty and choir director at Warren Wilson College.

As an activist she leads educational talks, marches in the streets and works with local people, businesses, police officers and politicians though her non-profit Community Roots. She is also a counselor, teacher and organizer with a focus on women and Native liberation within the framework of the international peer-based counseling community, Re-evaluation Counseling.

www.suzannahpark.com

Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Lonnie Norwood, Jr. is an in-demand clinician of African American folk/sacred music, helping educators and ensembles understand the historical significance, incomparable West African influences, vocal techniques, and the Black liberation aspects behind the vast collection. Lonnie is a member of the NAACP and the NANM (National Association of Negro Musicians). Lonnie joined the artistic staff at Chicago Children's Choir as a conductor in 2012 and opened its vivacious Englewood Neighborhood Choir in 2013; more recently he was appointed CCC's Director of Africana Studies and conductor of the Lincoln Park/DePaul Neighborhood Choir. In 2015 Lonnie established Audacious Praise, a multicultural arts outreach organization based in Chicago's South Side creating accessible, intergenerational programming that impacts social & spiritual unification in marginalized communities. He serves as Music Director at Bryn Mawr Community Church in the South Shore community (Chicago), and is in partnership with Old Town School of Folk Music bringing the Freedom Songbook Society to his community in South Shore. Norwood also conducts workshops with high schools, colleges and universities, notably Harvard University, Indiana University, and Temple University, and community choirs around the United States. He has recently lectured for various branches of the ACDA (American Choral Directors Association) and FMEA (Future Music Educators Association). More information can be found at lonnienorwood.com.