FIDDLERS! 23
Sunday, October 9, Noon – 7:00p
at the Roxbury Arts Center
5025 Vega Mountain Road
Roxbury NY
Sponsored by Fred Miller
The first snap of Autumn, the vibrant colors on the mountainside, and the scent of harvest means its time for fiddling, square dancing, fine homemade food, and world renowned folk musicians in Hilt & Stella Kelly Hall at the Roxbury Arts Center; it’s time for the FIDDLERS! Festival.
We are offering an exceptional line up for this year’s event! The Tremperskill Boys kick things off with a Square Dance at noon, supported by our friends at Catskills Folk Connection. The Tremperskills Boys return to the stage to perform a set of traditional music, followed by a performance from fiddlers Sara Milonovich & Bruce Molsky. Then Andrew VanNorstrand & Tim Ball take the stage of the Roxbury Arts Center, and the final performance of the evening is from Quebec’s De Temps Antan. But it doesn’t end there! Bring your own instrument and join us all of our performers for the All-Star Jam!
FIDDLERS! 23 Festival Schedule:
Noon – 1:15p Square Dancing with The Tremperskill Boys
2:00 – 2:45p Traditional music with The Tremperskill Boys
3:00 – 3:45p Sara Milonovich & Bruce Molsky
4:00 – 4:45p Andrew VanNordstand & Tim Ball
5:00 – 6:00p De Temps Antan
6:00 – 7:00p All-Star Jam (Bring your own instrument!)
Come hungry! The Ate.O.Ate Food Truck will be on hand serving up Catskill comfort food. And be sure to leave room for dessert – lovingly prepared and served by our community members.
About De Temps Antan: It takes a special blend of musical flair to create memorable songs of yesteryear! Songs with a hint of contemporary—dosed with uncontrolled laughter, deep-rooted couplets and sudden, impromptu shifts—that speak to familiar rhythms of the past. Welcome to the original musical stylings of De Temps Antan!
Since 2003, Éric Beaudry, André Brunet and Pierre-Luc Dupuis have been exploring and performing time-honoured melodies from the stomping grounds of Quebec’s musical past. Using fiddle, accordion, harmonica, guitar, bouzouki and a number of other instruments, our three virtuosos blend boundless energy with the unmistakable joie de vivre found only in traditional Quebec music. In fact, the only thing missing from this magnificent musical blend is you! So come enjoy an afternoon unlike any other with De Temps Antan.
About Andrew VanNorstrand: Andrew VanNorstrand is a musician, singer, songwriter and producer based in Cazenovia, NY. He has toured extensively in North America in several configurations including the Great Bear Trio, Andrew & Noah Band and Giant Robot Dance. Andrew first picked up the fiddle at eight years old, learning tunes by ear from elderly upstate New York fiddler Norma “Granny” Sweet. Through this experience, playing at jam sessions and sitting in at the local open band square dances every Tuesday night, Andrew developed a solid repertoire of old-time country, bluegrass and western swing music. Eventually Andrew and his brother Noah began playing for contra dances and formed the Great Bear Trio with their mother Kim on piano. He has gone on to become one of the most influential figures in the contra dance scene over the past 15 years; strongly connected to the traditional tunes that are the foundation of American folk dancing but constantly challenging himself (and others) to push the boundaries in new and exciting ways. He’s an accomplished teacher and lecturer and has been on staff at many festivals and camps including the Ashokan Music & Dance Camps, CDSS Pinewoods Camp and the Augusta Heritage Center.
Andrew spends a lot of time thinking and writing about music as well. In his words: “One of the things I’m most interested in is how music affects us. Music can be so full of color and emotion, movement and imagery, storylines and characters. We take our cues from the subtlest phrasing and simplest chord choices. Playing for dancers is even more of a trip. When you’re onstage at a contra dance you can look out and literally see what your music does to people. You can watch it move and change, you can feel it in the floor. That’s an amazing thing to experience!”
In addition to being a musician Andrew is also a very avid birder. On the surface, music and birding don’t seem to have that much to do with each other but the activities are very complementary. He often schedules his professional touring around migration, interesting habitats, or specific species he’s never seen before, and birding and music both offer experiences that are exciting, challenging and unpredictable. Andrew loves talking with people, finding new ways to express himself, stretching and exploring ideas and making connections with other people.
About Tim Ball: Tim Ball is a fiddler, guitarist, and teacher who grew up in Watkins Glen and currently lives in Newfield, NY. His music reflects a variety of influences, from New England contra dance music to rural New York State fiddlers to Irish music, classical, and jazz. A member of numerous groups including the traditional Irish band Traonach, the fiddle-jazz fusion band Tempest, and the string band O’Shanigans, Tim is known for his creativity, sensitivity, and deep respect for traditional music and dance. A graduate of Ithaca College, Tim also teaches violin, fiddle, and guitar in the Ithaca area.
About Sara Milonovich: Growing up on a working farm in rural upstate New York, she began playing fiddle when she was four, and by nine was leading her own band (around the same time she learned to drive a tractor.) She joined the Adirondack Fiddlers at age seven, and had the opportunity to learn firsthand a variety of fiddle tunes and styles common in NY from older generations of fiddlers who grew up playing local dances at grange halls and lumber camps. At age twelve she released her first cassette of traditional fiddle tunes, Traditionally, Sara. In June 2001, Sara traveled to Mt. Airy, North Carolina, where she competed in both the Bluegrass Fiddle and Folk Song contests, placing first and second, respectively.
Today, Sara is an award-winning singer, fiddler, songwriter/composer, and bandleader as well as a sought-after accompanist for a number of other artists in many musical genres. In addition to fronting her indie alt-grass band, Daisycutter, she has performed throughout the US, Europe, and beyond, in Americana roots, folk-rock, bluegrass, Appalachian, and Celtic music, as a solo artist and in collaboration with artists such as Pete Seeger (on his Grammy-winning album “At 89”), Richard Shindell, Cathie Ryan, Eliza Gilkyson, The McKrells, Anne Hills, and Antje Duvekot, among others. With upstate stringband, Mountain Quickstep, she toured Kosovo, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Turkey in 2011 as part of The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad, a cultural diplomacy program sponsored by Jazz at Lincoln Center and the US State Department.
About Bruce Molsky: He’s a self-described “street kid” from the Bronx who bailed on college and big city life for a cold-water cabin in Virginia in the 1970s. His mission? To soak up the passion that was dramatically upending his parent’s life plan for him – authentic Appalachian mountain music – at the feet of its legendary pioneers, old masters who are now long gone.
Today, Bruce Molsky is one of the most revered “multi-hyphenated career” ambassadors for America’s old-time mountain music. For decades, he’s been a globetrotting performer, ethnomusicologist and educator, a recording artist with an expansive discography including seven solo albums, well over a dozen collaborations and two Grammy-nominations. He’s also the classic “musician’s musician” – a man who’s received high praise from diverse fans and collaborators like Linda Ronstadt, Mark Knopfler, Celtic giants Donal Lunny and Andy Irvine, jazzer Bill Frisell and dobro master Jerry Douglas, a true country gentleman by way of the Big Apple aptly dubbed “the Rembrandt of Appalachian fiddlers” by virtuoso violinist and sometimes bandmate Darol Anger.
Molsky digs deep to transport audiences to another time and place, with his authentic feel for and the unearthing of almost-forgotten rarities from the Southern Appalachian songbook. His foils are not only his well-regarded fiddle work, but banjo, guitar and his distinctly resonant vocals. From tiny folk taverns in the British Isles to huge festival stages to his ongoing workshops at the renowned Berklee College of Music, Molsky seduces audiences with a combination of rhythmic and melodic virtuosity and relaxed conversational wit – a uniquely humanistic, down-home approach that can make Carnegie Hall feel like a front porch or parlor jam session.
Detailed performance schedule to be announced.