Amorak in HF: Free music lessons for kids; Strand concert is Sunday

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

Saturday, March 3, the students of the Amorak free youth music program at the Strand Theatre will give a concert sharing their progress. The concert is from 2-4 p.m. Admission is by $10 donation.

Director JoAnn Sifo took over this offering from the youth services non-profit Amorak after leader and accomplished musician Bob Bates of Hudson Falls passed away last September.

A guitarist-singer nominated several times by the Eddies Capital Region music awards, Ms. Sifo played with Mr. Bates in the long-running, long-touring bluegrass band Dyer Switch, New York State Country Music Hall of Fame inductees.

She calls the late Mr. Bates “not my biological twin but my twin of 40 years.”

So, she said, even though she lives in Rotterdam, a long drive from Hudson Falls, she “gladly” stepped in to run the Amorak music program after his passing.

“His students were heartbroken and just lost. Somebody had to,” Ms. Sifo said. “I picked it up just long enough, I thought, for them to find somebody. We did a memorial show for Bob, and the kids wanted to be part of it. So that’s when I started to rehearse them as a group.”

Amorak asked her to stay on, she says.

“I’ve developed a program very differently from what Bob had,” Ms. Sifo says. “Mine is more comprehensive, if you will. Bobby was so trained, it just never occurred, that there’s a way of learning how to play in a band,” for example. “I had to learn how to play in a band. So I took that experience, and brought it to the mix.”

Instructors include Levi Byrd, Lucia Byrd, Sal Viola. Ms. Sifo added guitarist-singer-songwriter-producer Lucas Garrett, to teach composition.
The program targets youths who might not have access to music lessons, whether because they’re home schooled, at-risk, or play an instrument such as guitar that’s not taught in school, she said.

Currently they have 13 students, Ms. Sifo said. The lessons are free. Instruments donated. The teachers are paid, funded through Amorak, she said.
“We’re always open to taking on instruments,” Ms. Sifo adds. “A trumpet, trombone, a cello. We’ll take anything that anybody has to offer, because I never know what’s going to come my way.”

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