Brass band benefit concert for housing not-for-profit

On Sunday, April 28 at 3 p.m. in St. John’s Lutheran Church (48 Greene Avenue, Sayville), the esteemed Long Island Brass Guild will perform with organist, Cindy Holden, in a benefit concert for Mercy Haven Inc.

The program will include Dudley Buck’s “Variations on the Star-Spangled Banner,” music by Gabrieli, Marcello, Praetorius, Carlyle Sharp and others.

Mercy Haven is a nonprofit service organization providing housing and counseling for the less fortunate in the community.

Established in 1985, Mercy Haven began in Bay Shore when sisters Patricia Griffith and Kathleen Nolan became community activists for the 116 residents set to lose their homes at the Baybright Hotel.

The not-for-profit agency borne out of those efforts was named Mercy Haven with a founding mission to provide housings for persons living with mental illness in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

The suggested donation for the concert is $15 per person, $10 for students and seniors, or $25 per family.   

The Long Island Brass Guild has performed in venues throughout Nassau and Suffolk County with a wide-reaching repertory that spans 17th through 20^th-century compositions.

In a 2016 performance at the Staller Center, the Guild performed a jaunty and lively rendition of “A Closer Walk With Thee” that was full of youthful energy and big band aura that could have kept a ballroom of GIs and their sweethearts dancing the night away.