On Sunday, April 29, at 4:00 p.m. in the FUUSN Sanctuary, a combined choir from several UU congregations will perform the cantata “The Immigrant Experience” by John Kramer, the Music Director at our Winchester congregation. The cantata is scored for choir, some instruments, and two professional soloists, and it is a beautiful and interesting work. If you would like to join our choir in singing The Immigrant Experience, be in touch with Anne Watson Born (music@fusn.org). We will begin rehearsing it in April.

Here is part of an article from the Winchester TAB: “When John Kramer stumbled on the words from George Washington’s 1783 letter, he couldn’t get them out of his head. The message conveyed a welcome to strangers from foreign lands.

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions,” read part of the quotation.

Sitting with the words, Kramer, Winchester Unitarian Society’s music director, was struck by a familiar fact with renewed power: America’s immigration and the mindset of openness go further back than the Statue of Liberty and 19th century waves of European immigrants, who included Kramer’s German family. Welcoming immigrants was rooted in America’s founding, and Kramer wanted to tell that story through music.