Jeni Foster to perform in Sisters

The name Jeni Foster will always bring on a smile to those who have longtime ties to Camp Sherman.

Foster taught music and entertained the residents of Camp Sherman for several years - right up until she and her husband Bill moved to Grants Pass in 2000.

But Foster is coming back to sing for and with her audience on Saturday afternoon, May 18, in the Sisters Library Community Room at 1:30 p.m. This will be a free concert - first-come-first-seated - presented by The Friends of the Sisters Library as one in a series of the Diane Jacobsen Historical Memorial Programs.

Springtime is often linked to birds nesting, and that's how Foster will begin, singing like a bird about birds. Audience participation is encouraged as Foster, who has had the family nickname of "Jeniwren" since childhood, invites members of the audience to sing along on choruses. This collection of songs, stories and fascinating facts about birds in folk music is sure to delight and inspire anyone who appreciates good music and our avian friends.

Foster has always loved to sing. She grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana, and her mom says she started singing as soon as she could talk. Recalling this memory, Foster says, "living in relative isolation I became very good at entertaining myself. I'd often sit on a windmill platform and sing to the cows - which in retrospect was a good exercise in

learning vocal projection! When I wasn't singing to cows, I entertained at family gatherings and sang at family weddings and funerals."

Foster has also written and collected songs celebrating the folk tradition - "Mother Jones: The Miner's Angel," songs of Robert Burns, "A Mighty Hard Road: Songs of America's Migrant Workers," and others.

"Folk music has been a neglected genre in recent years, and I hope that these programs play a small part in making people more aware of its great diversity, its inclusiveness, and its ability to make an emotional connection with events of history," she said.