Martha
Susan
Mary Ellen
Emily
Marian Emery
Rich Cohen
Stephen Merriman
Mary Merriman
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The Artists
The Merriman Sisters: Their names are Martha, Jane, Susan, Mary Ellen and Emily and they are truly sisters (Jane will not be able to join them this concert, however). They blend their voices together to produce a sound clearly born in each one of them, and conveyed in harmonies, rhythm, and timing that can only come from innate knowledge of one another. In their preschool years, Martha, Jane and Susan began their musical trio life taught and nurtured by their father who encouraged the vocal talents they inherited from their mother. The girls were unusual at that age not only because they could carry a tune precisely and blend as one voice, but because they could hear the complexities of three-part harmony and maintain their own parts within a tune. The more they sang together the better they learned to intuit each other’s harmonic movements in a song. In time, Mary Ellen and Emily, further down the birth order line, added their voices to the older sisters and the Merriman Sisters were complete.
The sound of the Merriman Sisters music has woven itself into the identity of the whole Merriman family, as evidenced by the number of family toddlers over the years that could hum an Andrews Sisters tune. The Merriman Sisters appearance at Merrimans’ Playhouse is a singularly unique opportunity for all on stage – sisters, brothers, cousin, and instruments and voices, to celebrate this musical tradition.
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