Event Will Highlight State's Heritage Sunday

Michigan's heritage will be showcased in the 2006 Summer's End Concert in DeTour Village Sunday, September 3, at the Union Presbyterian Church. The concert will start at 3 p.m., and will be followed by a reception by the Eastern Upper Peninsula Fine Arts Council. Glen and Joan Shaw of DeTour will be the honored guests at the concert. Mr. Shaw was a tugboat captain, and retains extensive knowledge of the DeTour area.

The Fine Arts Council will host the concert, which is free, however donations are welcome. This is the second of the council's Labor Day weekend concerts, and the council expects these to be annual, with a changing slate of performers each year.

This year's featured group is Collecting Consort, a family act from Lakeview featuring Anne Wakenhut on the Celtic harp, Gary Wakenhut on the hammered dulcimer and flutes, and their daughter, Jennifer Hetzman-Holmes, who will narrate the montage of drama, stories, nature sounds, and original music covering Michigan's history from the Ice Age and the Native Americans, to the preservation of its future. The audience will hear the music of the ethnic groups who have created Michigan. The program typically includes a variety of music to represent those groups, as well as a visit from Henry Ford, and readings from "Hiawatha" by Longfellow.

The Wakenhuts have worked for the past 35 years as teachers and counselors, and have extensive knowledge of Michigan history. They both say that creativity, especially in the form of music and the written word, was greatly valued in their homes when they were growing up. They recall the appeal of listening to stories while sitting beside a fire.

Since they have worked as professional musicians, they began getting requests for cassettes and compact discs of their music, and last year, they sold their 250,000th recording.