In collaboration with the Baltimore Irish Music School, the Baltimore Folk Club will be presenting a concert of traditional Irish music from Marty Frye, Sarah Collins, and David McKindley-Ward. The concert will feature an opening performance by some of the students of the Baltimore Irish Music School.

Reserve your seat here: https://forms.gle/wNMkVb134Kf4Gpc8A

Nate Sabat

Drawing from the rich and thriving tradition of American folk music, Sabat delivers expertly-crafted original songs and choice covers with the upright bass as his lone tool for accompaniment.

Becky Tracy & Keith Murphy

Becky and Keith are dynamic performers of traditional music from Newfoundland, Quebec, Ireland, France and beyond. Tracy’s fiddling pulses through tasteful arrangements of dance tunes and resonates with beauty on traditional slow airs. Keith’s gentle and expressive singing in English and French is balanced by the drive and power of his guitar playing and foot percussion. Combined, they produce a range and richness of sound that is striking for a duo.

Tickets: https://onrealm.org/CotSBaltimore/-/form/give/MurphySabat

Piper Jones Band is centered around beautifully and energetically played Highland bagpipes accompanied by the percussive chords of the bouzouki and drum. In addition to original instrumentals and traditional tunes from Ireland, Scotland, and Appalachia, the group sings powerful harmonies and can lead the audience in traditional Celtic dances. They bring authentic traditional music in an entertaining form. Technical experts, they can focus on delivering a passionate and audience-focused show. Piper Jones Band seeks to share abundant spirit, life-filled dance tunes, and song – with those who know Celtic music well and with those who are hearing it for the first time. The band’s first album The Wandering Stars has been played on The BBC Radio Scotland’s program Pipeline, NPR’s The Thistle and Shamrock, and has been enjoyed on the WNCW Celtic Winds program. With the recent release of Crossing the Sabine, Piper Jones Band is expected to reach even wider audiences. 

Tickets: https://forms.gle/iy8JDPk7NbcjB61y7

LYNX LYNX

Vidar Skrede and Patrik Ahlberg join their Scandinavian fiddle forces together in this Norwegian-Swedish folk music duo – lynx lynx. The variety of strings includes fiddles, Hardanger fiddles, guitars, and even a mandolin. The mix of tunes is put together by both their original and traditional Nordic fiddle tunes. This is what music sounds like between two Scandinavian transplants in the Midwest coming together to share their fiddle tunes.

Tickets: https://blackcherry.ticketspice.com/lynx-lynx

Time: Monday September 9, 2024 -  Doors at 7:00, concert at 7:30 PM
Address: The Wine Collective, 1700 W 41st St Suite 490, Baltimore, MD 21211

Kate Gregory and Brendan Hearn form an innovative duo that brings together American Old Time, Irish, and other folk music traditions on fiddle and cello. Kate (fiddle) and Brendan (cello) formed their friendship and musical connection at fiddle camps on the West and East coasts of the US. They combine their backgrounds from multiple musical styles and shared appreciation for melody and groove to create rhythmic arrangements of both traditional and original tunes and songs. The tunes they play and write live in both the rich and multi-continental history and in the imaginative future of traditional music.

https://www.kateandbrendanmusic.com/home

RSVP: https://forms.gle/Bkw5zt3GGfSbqj837

Time: Friday August 23, 2024 -  Doors at 7:00, concert at 7:30 PM

Address: The Four Hour Day Lutherie, 4305 Harford Rd, Baltimore, MD 21214

RSVP: https://forms.gle/RwuLJEnb2UvLhRzU9

REGISTERING IN ADVANCE SAVES YOU A SEAT, IN A REAL CHAIR. 

After registering, please send $20 per adult and $10 per child under 18 via venmo to @raosban, or with paypal to virgil.osban@gmail.com.  You can also pay in cash at the door.

The Shoats

Mary Linscheid, Alex Heflin, and brothers Gus & Huck Tritsch set an alt-folk soundtrack to the strange late-stage capitalist Appalachia they grew up in. Calling on their collective background in folk songs, honky tonk country, and the Appalachian high-lonesome sound, the Shoats reimagine the songs and sounds of their home with haunting original material and well-loved covers. 

Mary Linscheid calls herself a “songwriter, fiddler, and student of Appalachian singing traditions.” She cut her teeth in the Morgantown, WV, music scene as a solo performer and for playing with country and old-time artists Chris Haddox, the WVU Appalachian Ensemble, Half Past Four, and Jesse Milnes.

Brothers Gus and Huck Tritsch are well known in the State College, PA, area for their eclectic duo The Wicked Chicken. Gus has toured internationally with Philadelphia rock band Marah and roots artist/scholar of Black folk music, Jake Blount. Both brothers performed with Jake Blount for his NPR Tiny Desk Concert in January of 2023.

Mary released her EP “A Place to Grow Old” in June of 2022—original songs and a fiddle tune that explore her connection with her Appalachian home. Wicked Chicken have opened for Molly Tuttle and have performed widely throughly Central Pennsylvania. Both brothers have won or placed in numerous categories at the Appalachian String Band Music Festival in Clifftop, WV. Alex, originally from Los Angeles, CA, has recorded music for Klei Entertainment, Disney, Adult Swim, and has had his music featured in Bojack Horseman and Ari Aster’s “Beau is Afraid.” 

The Shoats released their debut single at the end of February. Put out on 7inch vinyl, with the big center hole so it plays on the jukebox.

Date: Tuesday, May 7
Time: Doors at 7, concert at 7:30 PM
Address: Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave, Baltimore, MD

Reserve your spot here: https://creativealliance.org/.../baltimore-folk-club.../

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” … you would think they’d been playing together for centuries. While his fiddle dances, her cello throbs darkly or plucks puckishly. Then [Haas] opens her cello’s throat, joining Fraser in soaring sustains, windswept refrains, and sudden, jazzy explosions. Their sound is as urbane as a Manhattan midnight, and as wild as a Clackmannan winter.”

— Boston Globe

The musical partnership between consummate performer Alasdair Fraser, “the Michael Jordan of Scottish fiddling,” and brilliant Californian cellist, Natalie Haas, spans the full spectrum between intimate chamber music and ecstatic dance energy. Over the last 16 years of creating a buzz at festivals and concert halls across the world, they have truly set the standard for fiddle and cello in traditional music. They continue to thrill audiences internationally with their virtuosic playing, their near-telepathic understanding, and the joyful spontaneity and sheer physical presence of their music.
Fraser has a concert and recording career spanning over 30 years, with a long list of awards, accolades, radio and television credits, and feature performances on top movie soundtracks (Last of the Mohicans, Titanic, etc.). In 2011, he was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame. Haas, a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, is one of the most sought after cellists in traditional music today. She has performed and recorded with a who’s who of the fiddle world, including Mark O’Connor, Natalie MacMaster, Irish supergroups Solas and Altan, Liz Carroll, Dirk Powell, Brittany Haas, Darol Anger, Jeremy Kittel, Hanneke Cassel, Laura Cortese, and many more.

This seemingly unlikely pairing of fiddle and cello is the fulfillment of a long-standing musical dream for Fraser. His search eventually led him to find a cellist who could help return the cello to its historical role at the rhythmic heart of Scottish dance music, where it stood for hundreds of years before being relegated to the orchestra. The duo’s debut recording, Fire & Grace, won the coveted Scots Trad Music Album of the Year award, the Scottish equivalent of a Grammy. Since its release, the two have gone on to record three more critically acclaimed albums that blend a profound understanding of the Scottish tradition with cutting-edge string explorations. In additional to performing, they both have motivated generations of string players through their teaching at fiddle camps across the globe.

Time: Wednesday April 17, 2024 -  Doors at 6:30, concert at 7:30 PM
Address: The Arthouse, 1115 W 36th St, Baltimore, MD 21211

About the Artists:

Micah John is an award-winning fiddler, guitarist, and singer. At only 18, she has spent the last decade immersed in the roots music community of the Northeast and has performed at legendary venues such as Club Passim and The Burren Backroom.

Lillian Chase, a 20-year-old fiddler and vocalist, grew up enveloped in the old-time and bluegrass scene in and around Asheville, NC, playing Southern venues including Merlefest, and is now studying Music Performance at Berklee College of Music.

Micah and Lillian were initially connected by their shared mentor, Bruce Molsky (who you can catch at the Old Time Festival next weekend). The two started performing as a duo after placing 1st in the Twin Fiddle category at the 2022 Lowell Banjo & Fiddle Contest, and played a sold-out show at Club Passim in the fall of 2022. Micah and Lillian share a love for old-time tunes and ballads, and interlace sets with newer songs and tunes. Their shows are full of tight harmonies, twin-fiddling, and rocking guitar & fiddle duets.

Date: Thursday, March 7, 2024
Time: Doors at 6:30, concert at 7:30 PM
Address: The Bluebird Green Room, 3600 Hickory Ave, Baltimore, MD 21211

Doors are at 6:30 so that there is plenty of time for dinner!

Reserve your spot here: https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSdCRnpF2nEAJo.../viewform

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Nathan Gourley and Laura Feddersen are an Irish fiddle duo hailing from Boston, Massachusetts. Their playing is steeped in lifelong study of the Irish musical tradition, and is at the same time colored by their American roots. The pair have developed a unique style of twin fiddling, sometimes playing in taut unison, sometimes exploring chordal harmonies and rhythmic and melodic variations. They each perform and teach regularly both at home in Boston and at festivals throughout the US and Ireland.

Listen to their music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMCHv_jdWIs