Ampersand250 brings lively music from the colonial era – ballads, political songs of the times, and instrumentals are featured in this interactive concert. Ampersand’s musicians bring guitar, mandolin, hammered dulcimer, cello, bouzouki, penny whistles to underscore rich vocal harmonies and great joy in sharing this traditional music with modern audiences.
The Langdon House tells the story of the early colony of New Hampshire, Portsmouth’s mercantile boom, and the Colonial Revival movement. A three-term governor of New Hampshire, John Langdon was also a Revolutionary leader, a signer of the United States Constitution, and a friend of George Washington, who visited the house in 1789. The Langdon House was also the home of the Black freedman Cyrus Bruce, a paid servant who was well known around Portsmouth. At the end of the nineteenth century, Langdon descendants purchased the house and restored it to its eighteenth-century appearance.