The Howard Lake Library presents a special New Years Eve family event on December 31st at 3 pm. Local performers Marienne Kreitlow and Jerry Ford weave together original and traditional music of the season with selected works of ‘the great and timeless poets’, including Robert Frost, Ogden Nash and Mary Oliver.  Between them, they play numerous musical instruments – piano, psaltery, flute, Irish whistles, hand percussion – fronted by tight vocal harmonies. 

Drawing from his years of involvement with theatre, Ford’s voice will bring these classics to life while Kreitlow’s music taps into the beauty, joy, and even the hilarity of weathering winter in Minnesota. Come find out what inspired Robert Burn’s signature piece, “Auld Lang Syne” as you sing and toast the new year with some piping hot chocolate, provided by the Friends of the Library.

Kreitlow was a veteran of the New England and national folk scene before she met and married Jerry Ford, a college theatre professor from Texas.  They returned to Marienne’s home in 2002 to help manage and operate the Kreitlow family farm near Howard Lake and are the founders of the Minnesota Garlic Festival,  .

Ford works with Great River Educational Arts Theatre in St. Cloud, is the Events Coordinator and provides Youth Outreach for the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota, while also being a passionate garlic farmer and promoter of its virtues.  Kreitlow , who has produced  nine albums of original music to positive acclaim (“An unassuming gem” -Boston Globe, “beguiling” -Minneapolis City Pages) continues her work as a playwright, composer, poet and performer.