Postscripts: Mourning the day the music died at the Stonington Farmers Market | Guest Columns

For those who frequent the venerable Stonington Farmers Market on Saturday mornings to shop, schmooze or showcase their dogs, or all three, particularly now that the market has moved inside the cavernous Velvet Mill in Stonington for the winter season, there long had been two sensory touchstones that welcomed patrons as they entered the market environs: the sweet smell of freshly popped, flavored popcorn from a stand actually on the outskirts of the market and the fiddle and banjo music that for a decade delivered a country ambience to the market.

No more.

The music has been silenced as this winter season begins.

The decision was made by the Stonington Village Improvement Association, which oversees the market. The reason, since the music of Craig Edwards and AJ Hocking, both of Mystic, has been part of the fabric for so long, sounds suspect to me.

Here is what Beth Black, co-chair of the SVIA’s Farmers Market Committee, had to say in response to my email about what I called banning the music:

“The decision to not continue music for the indoor market was not made lightly. They are certainly not ‘banned’ and musician fee ($50) is not an issue,” she wrote. “We received feedback from multiple vendors that having the traditional music indoors (in the current space) created an unacceptable sound level that made it difficult to interact with customers. We also heard from several customers that they found that the indoor music made it difficult to converse with vendors and friends.

“While many customers enjoy the music, it is certainly different for a customer to be in the space for 15 minutes and a vendor to be in the space for 3+ hours. The mill is busier/noisier now with several private business working in or around the market space and we need to make the space as safe and welcoming for our vendors. If we get more feedback from customers that they are missing the music, we can revisit the decision, possibly bringing in some alternative music that is softer and easier to listen to for 3 hours.”

I responded that neither the musicians nor I understand why the music was silenced now, and I told her the phrase “we need to make the space as safe and welcoming for our vendors” smacked of cancel culture rhetoric.

She wrote back:

“This is not about cancel culture, we try to respond to the needs of our vendors and customers. The leadership of SVIA weighed the feedback from our vendors and customers and made the decision to withhold music at this time. Again, we are never going to please everyone.”’

I’ve been a regular at the market (which has been going since 1997) for years both indoors and outdoors, and I’ve come to count on listening to the folksy playing of Edwards and Hocking, sitting on the periphery of the vendors and offering music that has been unfailingly acoustic, restrained and delightful, and, most of all, no more discordant than the genial Saturday morning market buzz.

Edwards, a renowned local musician long associated with Mystic Seaport and what was its annual Sea Music Festival, which he directed, has a degree in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and has been quite willing to talk to market patrons about the origin of traditional tunes he plays.

This is his response to what has ensued:

“First, we’ve been playing pretty regularly since at least April 2013, so coming up on ten years, and have been at the indoor market weekly since September 2014, so the last eight years. We don’t use amplification, and the instruments are fiddle and banjo, which carry clearly but are not particularly loud. The music we play originates with the music of rural farming communities — it’s social music that people have listened and danced to for many generations. We’ve felt very much a part of the community that loves and supports the Stonington Farmer’s Market.

“One of our great joys is watching the response of young children to our music — we’ve frequently had several children between toddlerhood and first or second grade dancing joyfully in front of us for fifteen minutes at a stretch. Older people stop by to tell us how our music reminds them of their early days. People will often ask us about the instruments, and over the years a number of those people have ended up taking lessons from me on fiddle or banjo. And people make their approval clear through their generous tips. If our music was really disturbing people, would they put money in the case?

“The farmers whose booths are closest to the indoor spot we’ve been in for the last years in the current space the market occupies are all enthusiastic about our music, and we have longstanding warm relationships with them. There are regular customers who make it a point to stop, listen, and thank us every week. If there are other sources of noise (particularly if a business is playing recorded music), those would certainly clash with our music and make for a jarring acoustic environment. It seems to me that the proper response from the SVIA would be to point out that they have live acoustic music for the pleasure of their customers and to request that they refrain from playing recorded music during the market hours rather than blaming us.”

Yes, I gave Edwards a greater share of space in this piece. I am biased. I want the music back and I doubt I am alone.

Steven Slosberg lives in Stonington. He may be reached at maayan72@aol.com.