Find out more about the Mari Black World Fiddle Ensemble show.
Music at 4:00 p.m.
Socializing and light potluck at 3:00 p.m.
$20 suggested artist donation*
For an invitation to attend, please contact Lee
by email at windycityhouseconcerts@gmail.com
or at 312-810-3067
You will not be able to sit still for this concert! Your feet will be tapping along at the very least and most likely you’ll be dancing in your seat!
Multistyle violinist and champion fiddler MARI BLACK is rapidly building a reputation as one of the most dynamic young artists of her generation. Her energetic playing, engaging stage presence, and commitment to bringing people together through music have made her a favorite with audiences across the country and around the world.
Equally at home in a wide variety of musical traditions, Mari is the 2015 & 2013 US National Scottish Fiddle Champion, the 2014 Glenfiddich Scottish Fiddle Champion, the 2014 & 2012 Canadian Maritime Fiddle Champion, the 2011 Canadian Novelty Fiddle Champion, a 1st Prize Winner at the 2010 American Protégé International String Competition, and a 2-time laureate at the American String Teachers’ Association Alternative Styles Awards.
On stage, she creates shows that draw on elements from many different styles including jazz, tango, folk, Western classical, as well as Celtic, American, and Canadian fiddling. Her performances take listeners on a musical journey exploring the diversity and celebrating commonalities in the dance-driven folk musics of the world.
“One of the brightest young fiddlers around today”
— Brian O’Donovan, host of WGBH radio’s “A Celtic Sojourn”
“She is superb, inspiring, and unforgettable. Her magic is such that she
sweeps audiences along with the sounds she and her instrument make.”
— Willie Ruff, Professor of Jazz and Artistic Director of the Ellington
Fellowship Series, Yale University
“Particularly impressive”
— The Boston Globe
“Castlerock Road” on the beach in San Diego, CA
A set of original Celtic-style tunes at Boston’s Club Passim
Mari’s original composition, “The Purple Butterfly and Other True Beginnings”
Preview of Mari’s solo album “Flight”
To get emails about our shows, please click here to subscribe to our mailing list.
* All funds go to the musicians
Find out more about the Ordinary Elephant show.
http://www.ordinaryelephant.net/
https://www.facebook.com/ordinaryelephant
https://www.youtube.com/user/OESongs
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KDRZ2NwxT9UZ0RyG8gHFs
http://instagram.com/ordinaryelephant
https://twitter.com/ordinarelephant
Music at 4:00 p.m.
Socializing and light potluck at 3:00 p.m.
$20 suggested artist donation*
For an invitation to attend, please contact Lee
by email at lee@windycityhouseconcerts.org
or at 312-810-3067
Free child care provided (advance notice required)
With her soulful, impeccably tuned voice and crafted poetry, Boston singer-songwriter Alice Howe is “at once of the moment and timeless, personal and universal” (Mark Walton, Americana UK). Her pure, distilled sound reflects a musical sensibility rooted in ’60s folk and ’70s Southern California songwriters. Alice’s 2017 EP You’ve Been Away So Long features her original song “Homeland Blues,” which debuted at #1 on the April Folk DJ chart and came in as the #7 song of the entire year. She was a 2017 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artist, and has performed at such venerable Northeast venues as Club Passim, Caffè Lena, and Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts.
“A gem…at once of the moment and personal, timeless and universal.” – Mark Walton, Americana UK
“Up there with the very best of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Gretchen Peters and Dar Williams” – Folking.com
“These are well crafted songs” – Country Music People (UK)
“This music is visceral, real and simple” – Folkwords
“…I could listen to her sing for hours. Her voice is beautiful as a bell, classic in that Joan Baez way, transporting, wistful…her vocal mastery and musicality are beyond her young years and her songs stay in my head for days.” -Antje Duvekot
“How can a singer-songwriter have a voice like a broken angel’s bell and write songs that could be a week or a hundred years old all at once? Alice Howe, that’s how.” – Vance Gilbert
“Classic emotive folk reminiscent of Kate Wolf, Alice Howe’s earnest lyrics and heart-melting vocals might be the musical equivalent of lying in the dark beneath a clear sky of stars.” – Robby Hecht
https://www.alicehowe.com/
https://www.facebook.com/alicehowemusic/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX8jC6IrUVOuqnyOs2fIs9g
https://alicehowe.bandcamp.com/
https://meandthee.org/interviews/alice-howe/
Music at 4:00 p.m.
Socializing and light potluck at 3:00 p.m.
$20 suggested artist donation*
For an invitation to attend, please contact Lee
by email at windycityhouseconcerts@gmail.com
or at 312-810-3067
Free child care provided (advance notice required)
Cosy Sheridan has been called “one of the era’s finest and most thoughtful singer/songwriters” She first appeared on the national folk scene in 1992 when she won the songwriting contests at The Kerrville Folk Festival and The Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Since then she has released 10 cds, written a one-woman-show and her music has appeared in books and film. She has taught songwriting, guitar and performance workshops at music camps for the past 15 years, including The Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and The Swannanoa Gathering. She is the director of The Moab Folk Camp in Moab, Utah.
Cosy Sheridan first caught the attention of national folk audiences in 1992 when she won the New Folk songwriting contests at The Kerrville Folk Festival and The Telluride Bluegrass Festival; The Boston Globe wrote “She is now being called one of the best new singer/songwriters.”
She has been on the road ever since, playing clubs, concert halls and coffeehouses from Seattle to Berkeley and across and across I-80 to Omaha, Chicago and then to Boston where she now makes her home. On her new CD, Sometimes I Feel Too Much, she writes of these years on the road in her song Woody Guthrie Watch Over Me.
A Cosy Sheridan concert is a wide-ranging exploration: love songs for adults – and practical philosophy for a complicated world. She has written about the stock market crash of 2008 and fall-out from uranium mining in the American southwest. She has re-written greek myths: Persephone runs away with Hades the biker. And then there are her signature parodies on aging and women.
Backed by the strong rhythms and harmonies of her bass player Charlie Koch, Sheridan’s concerts are full of energy and emotionality. Her songs are carefully crafted – and often shorter than the average folk song. “Cosy writes intelligent and clever lyrics with stickable melodies,” wrote Sing Out Magazine. She plays a percussive bluesy guitar style – often in open tunings and occasionally with 2 or more capos on the guitar.
Throughout her 25 year career, Cosy has continued to win fans and also rave reviews: her 2014 release, Pretty Bird, was chosen as one of Sing Out Magazine’s “Great CDs of 2014.” For the past 20 years she has taught classes in songwriting, performance and guitar at workshops and adult music camps across the country. In 2008 she co-founded the Moab Folk Camp in Moab, Utah.
A buddhist monk in a 12-step program trapped in the body of a singer/songwriter – The Albuquerque Journal
Sheridan is frank, feisty, sublimely and devilishly Funny. She fuses myth with modern culture, Persephone with Botox – Cornell Folksong Society
http://www.cosysheridan.com/
https://www.facebook.com/cosysheridanmusic/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEKO7FbtLAC5QiYK6XqfoTw
To get emails about our shows, please click here to subscribe to our mailing list.
* All funds go to the musicians
Music at 4:00 p.m.
Socializing and light potluck at 3:00 p.m.
$20 suggested artist donation*
For an invitation to attend, please contact Lee
by email at windycityhouseconcerts@gmail.com
or at 312-810-3067
Free child care provided (advance notice required)
With a smokey and seductive alto, 7-time IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) Bass Player of the Year, Missy Raines, heads up this all-acoustic ensemble. The territory The New Hip covers is broad and the compass is set by Raines, planted right in the center of the stage directing with her bass every bit as much as she’s playing it. Raines, “…launches her well-tended craft off the bluegrass dock into the waters of jazz and folk, holding onto the anchor of bluegrass while pushing steadily at the boundaries of the music that engulfs her.” -Country Standard Time
Raines’ bluegrass roots are deep and long-reaching with touring and recording stints with 1st generation legends such as Eddie Adcock, Mac Wiseman, Jesse McReynolds, Josh Graves and Kenny Baker. A former member of the Claire Lynch Band, The Brother Boys, and one half of the acoustic super duo, Jim Hurst (who played for Windy City House Concerts three years ago this month) and Missy Raines, Missy is one of the most respected and popular figures within the bluegrass community. And in the small world department, Missy played with Bill Evans and our close friend, Steve Smith in the band Cloud Valley early on.
“A seductive amalgam of folk, country, bluegrass, and rock, recalling the earliest platters by Lucinda Williams and Rosanne Cash.”
– Icon Magazine
“Raines is not only a superb bassist but also an excellent singer, with a matter-of-fact, low-key delivery that’s sometimes hushed, sometimes seductive, sometimes channeling a simmering unease.”
– New York Music Daily
“The New Hip, along with bands such as the Avetts and Churchill, add their brilliance to the swiftly growing collection of Newgrass artists that have brought southern music to the mainstream.
– Deep South Magazine
https://www.youtube.com/user/missyrainesmusic
http://www.missyrainesandthenewhip.com/
https://www.facebook.com/missyrainesandthenewhip/
To get emails about our shows, please click here to subscribe to our mailing list.
* All funds go to the musician
Music at 4:00 p.m.
Socializing and light potluck at 3:00 p.m.
$20 suggested artist donation
For an invitation to attend, please contact Lee
by email at windycityhouseconcerts@gmail.com
or at 312-810-3067
Free child care provided (advance notice required).
I’ve been waiting for years for the opportunity to host Bella Hardy and share her amazing performance. I was captivated by her beautiful voice, gripping songs and soulful fiddling the first time I saw her at a Folk Alliance conference.
BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Singer of the Year 2014, Bella Hardy’s fine fiddling and mesmerizing voice have propelled her to the vanguard of British folk music. Creating twisted tales that touch on both the fantastical elements of Kate Bush, and the lovelorn songwriting craft of Carole King, she presents folk songs in the best tradition; not as antiquated museum pieces, but as relevant and very human artworks.
Since the release of her critically acclaimed ‘With The Dawn’ two years ago (“nothing short of a masterpiece” – The Sunday Times UK), she has spent a winter in China as British Council Musician in Residence, extensive time in Nashville co-writing and observing from coffee shop windows, and opened tours for Grammy winner Mary Chapin Carpenter. Bella, her fiddles and her notebooks, have once again been traveling, thinking, flying, driving, training, reading and gazing. A rare treat, Bella’s travels bring her to us from her home in Glasgow, Scotland.
“Ultimately, what Hardy has done here is make a folk album for people who don’t normally like folk music. In doing so, it’s both a credit to her and the genre.” – Q Magazine reviewing Bella’s latest album, “With the Dawn
“Bravely personal diary of a touring folk singer… never since Paul Simon’s Homeward Bound has
the life of a touring folk singer sounded quite so angst-ridden” – The Guardian
http://www.bellahardy.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BellaHardyMusic/
https://www.youtube.com/user/BellaHardyTV
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115855806357791041661
https://soundcloud.com/bellahardy
https://twitter.com/bellahardy
Music at 4:00 p.m.
Socializing and light potluck at 3:00 p.m.
$20 suggested artist donation
For an invitation to attend, please contact Lee
by email at windycityhouseconcerts@gmail.com
or at 312-810-3067
Free child care provided (advance notice required).
A 2014 Winner of the Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk songwriter contest, Daniel shares experiences from a life well-lived in places as far-ranging as Okinawa, Japan, and Padre Island, Texas. Daniel is a balladeer/songwriter and delights audiences with his well-crafted story songs coast-to-coast in over one hundred shows a year in house concerts, listening rooms, theatres and festivals. For three decades Daniel was a gun-toting Park Ranger and Criminal Investigator in National Parks and Public Lands throughout the west and he started touring fulltime at 50.
Daniel’s songs tell interesting stories about a variety of characters, including himself, played on guitar, banjo and banjitar (a banjo/guitar hybrid) with a deft fingerpicking style. His clear tenor draws positive comparisons to John Denver and Pete Seeger, and folks say there’s a lot of Steve Goodman in his delivery and storytelling. Other songwriting awards include 1st Place at Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Walnut Valley Festival, Santa Fe Bluegrass and Old Time Festival, and Albuquerque Folk Festival. You can’t help but relate to Daniel’s songs!
https://www.facebook.com/daniel.boling.10
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