YARMOUTH — Ten preschoolers sat quietly in chairs, proudly holding ukuleles they built out of sticks, plastic containers and rubber bands.
Looking on was a crowd three times as large, made up of parents, grandparents and siblings. The 4- and 5-year-old performers were on the last day of a weeklong Little Roots music camp at the newly refurbished 317 Main Community Music Center. They performed in concert to demonstrate what they’d learned. The show ended with kids and families dancing together in the center’s new Fox & The Fiddle Cafe.
“They do a lot of things to get kids interested in music, like an instrument petting zoo, where kids get to learn and touch different instruments,” said Anna Frechette of Yarmouth, whose 5-year-old son, Max, was one of the Little Roots performers. “This place really draws people. I think they found the right town to do this in.”
The 317 Main Community Music Center was opened in 2004 by locals who wanted a place in town where people of all ages could come together to learn and play music. It was based in an 1850s home on Yarmouth’s historic Main Street, with three teachers at first.
After a $6.5 million expansion that was completed this year, the nonprofit center now has a staff of 38 teaching artists and serves about 800 students a week in classes and camps, including kids and adults from more than 40 cities and towns. The center and its teachers reach even more students with partnerships at area schools and other organizations.
The size of the facility has more than doubled, increasing from 4,500 to 10,000 square feet, with a modern addition designed to fit in with the style and scope of the original 1850s home. The organization had a grand opening for the new expanded facility in June.
The addition includes a 200-seat multipurpose hall – Founders Hall – where concerts, dances and other large-scale events can be held. The number of classrooms doubled, from nine to 19, and a recording studio was added. Also new is The Fox & The Fiddle Cafe, which hosts drop-in Cajun music jams and open mic nights and is open to the public. It also serves as a place for students, teachers, family and friends to hang out and grab a bite or a drink while at the center.
On any given day, all kinds of music can be heard throughout the center, from classic rock and jazz to Cajun, bluegrass or even rubber-band ukulele.
Little Roots Camp members perform for family and friends at 317 Main’s new Fox and the Fiddle Cafe, accompanied by teaching artist Ted DeMille, right, on guitar. Carl D. Walsh/Staff Photographer
COME TOGETHER, RIGHT NOW
On the day the Little Roots campers gave their concert, campers of all ages were busy playing, practicing and learning new songs and skills in various parts of the center. On the stage of the new Founders Hall, middle-school age students were grouped together in bands to practice and play.
A six-piece group calling itself Mojo Men was in the middle of “Yesterday” by the Beatles around noon. Just before, they had also done another Beatles classic, “Come Together.” For the campers on stage, the weeklong camp at 317 Main was a chance to come together with other like-minded youngsters from all over the area.
“This is my favorite all-time camp,” said Rourke Bogle, 10, of Freeport, on electric guitar. “I’m into rock, and we’ve been doing tons of rock. Every day, we do ‘Back in Black’ (by AC/DC) and get to do solos.”
The music center’s core principles, from its earliest days, was to provide opportunities to learn and play accessible kinds of music for people of all ages, said John Williams, the executive director and an original board member. While some music schools or teachers focus just on kids, 317 Main has programs for everyone from infants to seniors.
The Mojo Men band practices in 317 Main Community Music Center’s new 200 seat Founders Hall. Carl D. Walsh/Staff Photographer
Justin Whitlock, 58, of Yarmouth, would probably have never taken guitar lessons if 317 Main hadn’t opened in his town. Whitlock, who works for a cyber security firm, was given a guitar as a present by his wife about 25 years ago. He said that, after 10 years, he had taught himself two chords. But one night about 15 years ago, he was having dinner with Matt Shipman, who happened to teach guitar and told him about the relatively new music school in town he was teaching at called 317 Main.
Whitlock said one of Shipman’s methods was to have him play and sing at the same time. He never thought he’d be able to do them both, but in time, he could. Soon, he was singing and playing guitar in the morning as his kids got ready for school. His son, Nico, and daughter, Adrianna, both ended up taking lessons on various instruments and playing at 317 Main, including in the teen ensemble, Flight 317. His wife took lessons there, too, for the fiddle.
Last summer, the family, including the kids now grown, performed for friends in the Whitlocks’ backyard.
“There’s no way I would have started taking guitar lessons at 45 if that place wasn’t here,” said Whitlock, who now plays bass in a rock band called Big Problem.
Before the expansion, 317 Main had regularly held concerts or open mic nights in other venues around town, including churches or restaurants.
“As we grew, we just saw that we’d have a lot more opportunity to serve more people if we expanded. It’s more difficult to build a sense of community when you’re spread out,” said Williams, a mandolin player who lives in North Yarmouth. “We really like our Main Street location, and so we really wanted to expand here.”
The 1850s home where 317 Main began was owned by its founder, Peter Milliken, an amateur musician and philanthropist. The nonprofit organization rented the building for about 11 years before buying it for $590,000 in 2015. For the renovation, the center has raised about $4.2 million and is in the process of raising the rest, Williams said. They used about $500,000 of the $1.5 million grant awarded to the organization in 2021 by billionaire philanthropist Mackenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
The 317 Main Community Music Center in Yarmouth includes the original historic home in the front with a modern addition on the back. Carl D. Walsh/Staff Photographer
The center has an annual budget of about $1.4 million and earns about 65 percent through fees charged for lessons, ensembles, workshops concerts and events. Individual lessons cost more than group lessons, and some of the opportunities to play are fairly low-cost, Williams said. Tuition for the Little Roots weeklong camp is $215, while the price for the Jam Camp – ages 10-15 – is $410. Admission to a drop-in jam session, for example, is $5. The center offers financial aid for all its programs.
Besides unveiling its expansion to the public this summer, the staff at 317 Main is also resuming its longtime outdoor annual music festival, known as Henryfest, after a three-year pandemic-induced hiatus. It’s scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 9, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., at Skyline Farm in North Yarmouth.
Scheduled performers usually include alumni, students or friends of the center. This year’s lineup so far includes Caroline Cotter, Corner House, Primo Cubano, Joe Walsh, Jed Wilson and Ella Jordan, among others. Tickets are $23, $8 for kids 7-18, and free for kids 6 and under.
The event was named after Williams’ dog and had run for about 15 years before the pandemic, sometimes drawing 1,000 people.
For Williams himself, being involved with the center and its community has been life-changing, or at least career-changing. Williams, 64, had worked as an environmental consultant for many years when he got involved with 317 Main as board chair when it began. He was enthused about the organization’s mission to provide music lessons locally, so that people in Yarmouth and surrounding towns wouldn’t have to travel to Portland and beyond. And he especially embraced the idea that a music center – with lessons, performances, teachers, students, etc. – could bring the whole community together. So, in 2009, he left environmental consulting to become 317’s executive director.
Diane Whitmore plays the guitar during the Cajun Jam at 317 Main Community Music Center in Yarmouth. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer
Sigrid Sibley of Poland Spring said it was the lure of being part of a musical community that prompted her to begin taking guitar lessons at 317 Main, traveling about 40 minutes each way from her home to Yarmouth. She began when she was 12, partly because her father was friends with Carter Logan, a well-known Maine bluegrass musician who teaches at 317 and runs the teen ensemble Flight 317.
She could have taken individual lessons from a teacher, but liked the idea of being in a place where all kinds of music was happening all the time. She ended up learning mandolin and playing in Flight 317. Now 24 and working in outdoor education at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, she and some other alums of 317 Main have continued to play together occasionally. She is also now a teaching artist at 317 Main.
“When I’d walk into 317 Main, there were groups of musicians having a pickup session on the porch or in the lobby,” said Sibley. “To have a place where you can constantly be surrounded by music, musicians and mentors is pretty special.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
