Lansing musicians Jim Hall and Cindy Morgan lead a “Songs of Pete Seeger” workshop during the Mid-Winter Singing Festival at the Hannah Community Center on Feb. 1, 2014. Workshops were hosted throughout the day as a part of the Ten Pound Fiddle Concert Series.
The rooms of the Hannah Community Center were filled with people singing, stomping and clapping as they reveled in the sounds of the Mid-Winter Singing Festival this past weekend.
The Mid-Winter Singing Festival spanned Friday and Saturday and was held in the Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbot Road.
Various sounds of guitars, banjos, ukuleles, trumpets and percussion instruments accompanied the attendees as they sang lyrics to songs from different genres with each other.
The festival served as a place for people to join various song leaders and sing together as an audience. The songs took on a relaxed vibe and the attendees constantly clapped to the mellow beat.
“Singers take over the Hannah Center,” said Sally Potter, the founder of the Mid-Winter Singing Festival. “We have two huge community sings on Friday and Saturday that fill up with the place with about 400 to 500 people.”
The festival also featured singing workshops, which were held on Saturday afternoon. The workshops were held in various rooms and each room offered a different genre of music to sing along with.
The singing workshops were headlined by singer Ysaye Barnwell, a renowned singer who hosts singing workshops throughout the country.
Barnwell led a room of over 100 people in traditional African-American songs for four hours on Saturday after performing on Friday night as well.
The festival attracted people from across the state who love to sing.
“It’s fun singing, it’s kind of become a tradition for my lady friend and myself,” said Steve Mason, an Ann Arbor resident. “I like singing because I’m a terrible singer, but with a whole bunch of people, I can sing as loud as I want because nobody can hear me.”
The event had a mixture of people who have been going since the festival started in addition to newcomers, but everyone there had the same shared interest in singing.
“I’ve come to this every year since it started 12 years ago and I love it,” said Margaret Kingsbury, a Lansing resident. “One of the most uplifting things I’ve ever done (is) to sing with a group of people.”
Potter said the event has grown every year since it started, with word of the festival and its purpose spreading throughout the community. According to Potter, the chance to sing is what brings people back every year.
“They come because it’s really fun to sing,” Potter said. “The sound is pretty overwhelming once you get everybody singing.”
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