Jake Blount, Nic Gareiss and Sammy Wetstein Trio

Award-winning performers Jake Blount (banjo, fiddle, electric guitar), Nic Gareiss (percussive dance) and Sammy Wetstein (cello) blend scholarship, identity and performance practice to draw American roots traditions into a fuller and brighter future.  Their years of experience as performers, educators, and scholars draw them into the spontaneous creative force at the heart of music-making. The trio brings the power of those fresh bonds to bear in a new performance: a paean to both strong roots and musical co-infatuations traced in wood, flesh, and gesture.

Jake Blount (Providence, RI) is a singer and multi-instrumentalist who like his recent Smithsonian Folkways release, The New Faith – seamlessly merges centuries-old traditional songs with modern genres. Like his mentor Rhiannan Giddons, Blount, has made significant contributions to American roots genre by recovering and restoring the music of black and indigenous artists that were purposely segregated and suppressed by white record labels.  Then he produces original music through his own gender-queer and afro-futurist lens- providing a joyous and sonorous healing of the historic record.  A winner of the 2021 Steve Martin Banjo Prize and a Smithsonian Folkways recording artist, American Songwriter has dubbed him the “King of Roots.”

Percussive dancer Nic Gareiss (Lansing, MI) has been named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” and has been hailed by the New York Times for their “dexterous melding of Irish and Appalachian dance.” His performances are often curated to call attention to what we would now call gender queer themes hidden within traditional song and dance.  In 2020, Gareiss received the Michigan Heritage Award, the highest honor his home state bestows on traditional artists.

Sammy Wetstein (Boston, MA) is a musician who infuses folk and jazz music with improvisational creativity. He has performed at the Newport Folk Festival, The Shalin Liu Performance Center, and the International Bluegrass Music Association conference, and has appeared alongside artists jazz icons Joe Levano and Kenny Barron, and world-renowned string players including Eugene Friesen, Darol Anger, and Jason Anick. He is currently a student at Berklee College of Music focusing on jazz and roots cello performance.