Oneida Public Library News

‘Songs of Children at Play’

(Oneida, NY) With Mother’s Day in sight, Oneida Public Library presents a special appearance by singer Sarah Davies Hasegawa and pianist Melinda Feldmann in an interactive performance entitled “Songs of Children at Play” on Wednesday May 9 at 7 p.m.

The program, geared for mothers and their younger children, will strike the nostalgic note with Hasegawa singing traditional songs that children passed on among themselves for generations, whether in the playgrounds or on the streets of urban neighborhoods.

Hasegawa has selected songs that invite audience participation, ranging from “A Tisket, A Tasket” and its circle game to “Did You Ever See a Lassie?” and a drop-the-handkerchief game.

Hasegawa, former Madison County Historian and currently a Kindermusick instructor at Oneida Library and other venues, was a regular performer in the Empire Opera Theater and has periodically performed in Oneida Library productions, most recently “Christmas by Injunction” at the Oneida Community Mansion House last December. She is also a member of the chorus of Syracuse Opera.

Melinda Feldmann, a graduate of the Crane School of Music, is a music teacher at J. D. George Elementary School, a piano and voice teacher and organist and pianist at the First Presbyterian Church on Broad Street. She is active in the musical theater at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School and the Oneida High School, while she continues her fruitful association with the Victoria Buda Academy of Theatrical Arts in Sherrill.

The program is free and open to the public.

Historian retraces the ‘Titanic,’ the stuff of legends

In “A Night To Remember: The R.M.S. Titanic,” a program at the Oneida Public Library Thursday May 10 at 7 p.m., historian Cherl Pula celebrates the ill-fated ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic 100 years ago on its maiden voyage.

Pula will relate the history of the “Titanic” from its inception as an idea of Lord Perrie and J. Bruce Ismay to its design and construction and on through the fateful night of April 15, 1912 when the ship struck an iceberg. The ship “was the most opulent ocean liner built to that time and the largest moving object ever made by man,” Pula said.

Ironically, the Titanic also boasted the most advanced safety features of any ship of its time, Pula adds. When she sank off the Grand Banks, some 1,500 passengers and crew lost their lives.

Pula will also discuss some of the famous passengers on the Titanic, which the press had dubbed the Millionaire’s Special. Among those millionaires, John Jacob Astor of New York City was the richest. After giving up a seat in a lifeboat to a woman, he with other men stood on the top deck and went down with the ship.

Pula will also address the search and discovery of the sunken ship in the freezing North Atlantic waters and the many legends that continue to grow around the Titanic.

The program is free and open to the public.

For more information, stop by the Oneida Library, 220 Broad St., or call 363-3050.