http://www.uticaod.com/news/x1269028...th-anniversary
Gordon Lightfoot to help lab celebrate 50th anniversary
Masonic facility known worldwide for research
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By Staff reports
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Apr 19, 2009 @ 04:30 PM
UTICA —
Gordon Lightfoot, the singer of the ballad “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” is coming to the Stanley Center for the Arts in June to help the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory celebrate its 50th anniversary.
“Mr. Lightfoot is internationally revered as a talented singer and songwriter, and we are absolutely delighted that he has expanded his tour to include a stop in Utica,” said David Schneeweiss, president of the research laboratory.
Lightfoot, who is Canadian, composed a good deal of folk music in the 1960s and was well known across musical genres by the 1970s. He has received five Grammy nominations and produced 24 albums that have gone gold, platinum or double platinum. His 1976 ballad,
“Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” chronicled a shipwreck one year earlier on Lake Superior.
He is a member of the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.
Proceeds will benefit cardiac research at the Masonic laboratory. That lab opened 50 years ago after the Masonic Grand Lodge of New York decided to build and equip a medical laboratory on the grounds of the Masonic Home in East Utica.
Today, the lab is known worldwide for research in areas including experimental cardiology. A major area of concentration for the lab has been studies to determine the cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS. At the start of this decade, Masonic laboratory researchers linked SIDS to a congenital heart defect associated with abnormal heart rhythm.
The Lightfoot concert is scheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday, June 25, at the Stanley.
Ticket prices range from $35 to $65 and may be purchased through Ticketmaster or the Stanley box office at 724-4000.
Gordon Lightfoot to help lab celebrate 50th anniversary
