Lynn Miles is an award winning singer-songwriter, record producer, teacher, writer, public speaker.
She’s also pretty funny, a 3 minute standup routine is at the top of her bucket list.
Lynn has 16 albums to her credit. She won a Juno award (Canadian Grammy)in 2003 for Roots Traditional Album of the year, and went on to be nominated in the same categories in 2011 and 2006. She is also the recipient of 6 Canadian Folk Music Awards including 3 for songwriter of the year. Her 2 most recent awards we given to her duo THE LYNNeS for songwriters of the year, and ensemble of the year at the 2018 Canadian Folk Music Awards. In 2016, Americana artist Clair Lynch recorded Lynn’s song “Black Flowers” on her Grammy nominated album North By South.
Lynn estimates she’s written about 900 songs, she’s never done an official count.
She has produced 5 albums for other artists.
Her most recent album tumbleweedyworld was nominated for album of the year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, and her previous album (#15) We’ll Look For Stars was # 1 on the Euro/americana chart for the month of August 2020
Lynn tours as a solo artist, also with her stellar guitar player Keith Glass, and with her folk/rock band, and style of music she calls FROCK. Since the release of tumbleweedyworld she also plays with a stellar bluegrass band, THE TUMBLEWEEDS. Lynn has performed her music with arrangements by Grammy nominee Peter Keisewalter with the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
In the heart of Lincoln, Nebraska, The Wildwoods emerge as a folk/Americana trio, a musical tapestry woven by the husband-and-wife duo, Noah (guitar) and Chloe Gose (violin), accompanied by the bassist Andrew Vaggalis. Their story is a symphony of exploration and connection, a journey that has taken them from the Midwest to international stages, carving out a unique place in the folk landscape. Their presence has graced stages alongside artists such as Mighty Poplar, Sierra Ferrell, Aiofe O’ Donovan, Melissa Carper, Jamie Wyatt and Joe Nichols at concerts and festivals like Summerfest, FreshGrass and the Oyster Ridge Music Festival.
The Wildwoods have become a force in the folk scene, boasting accolades like being finalists at the FreshGrass Music Festival Band competition and Gems on VHS “Gems in the Rough” competition in 2023. Their songwriting prowess is underscored by semi-final placements in the International Songwriting competition, with tracks like “Untitled” and “Way of Train.” Recognized consistently at the Omaha Arts and Entertainment Awards, they were crowned “Best Band” by the Lincoln Journal Star’s Lincoln Choice Awards in 2022.
Their sonic journey unfolds through albums like the debut “Sweet Nostalgia” (2017), followed by “Birdie & Goose” (2017), “Across A Midwest Sky” (2019), and their latest masterpiece, “Foxfield Saint John” (2023). The band’s evolution is evident in each track, a testament to their commitment to pushing musical boundaries.
United by a passion for folk/Americana, the trio’s influences range from Watchhouse and Nickel Creek, to Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. Their music, though comfortably under the folk/Americana umbrella, weaves intricate chord structures and emotional textures that defy genre boundaries. Together, their harmonies resonate with artful sincerity, drawing inspiration from nature, their shared experiences of growing up in Nebraska, and life on the road.
North Carolinian Eric Bachmann’s debut solo album may have been called Short Careers, but his musical career has been anything but. Beginning with his early-’90s indie rock band Archers of Loaf, the one-time Appalachian State University saxophone major moved through several generations to craft a relentlessly independent and uncompromising rock & roll journey. Archers of Loaf would slowly amass a devoted cult following on the strength of albums like All the Nations Airports and White Trash Heroes. Before Archers of Loaf disbanded in the late ’90s, Bachmann would be well into side project Barry Black and on the way to his long-running dark songwriting moniker Crooked Fingers. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Bachmann’s output was strong and consistent, both as Crooked Fingers and under his own name.
With their 1993 debut Icky Mettle, Bachmann’s group Archers of Loaf unleashed a collection of white noise, Pavement-style guitar pop, and loopy lyrics that deftly matched the crunch of Chapel Hill’s other underground giants, Superchunk. In 1995, Bachmann began the instrumental side project Barry Black with producer Caleb Southern and released two LPs. The Archers released three more studio albums before disbanding in 1998, capping things off with a posthumous live record called Seconds Before the Accident.
Crooked Fingers, Bachmann’s more stripped-down follow-up project, debuted in 2000 with a self-titled full length that introduced a dark-hued mix of folk, indie, and Americana. Bring on the Snakes, Crooked Fingers’ slightly more optimistic sophomore output, followed a year later. In 2002, Bachmann released Short Careers, his first set of recordings under his own name. The entirely instrumental set marked his first foray into film scoring, providing the soundtrack to the independent film Ball of Wax, the story of an evil baseball player mad with greed. In the summer of 2006, Bachmann released his second proper solo album, the sparse and powerful To the Races. Throughout the rest of that decade, Crooked Fingers would serve as his primary creative vehicle, culminating with 2011’s Breaks in the Armor. A talented multi-instrumentalist, Bachmann joined fellow songwriter Neko Case’s touring band in 2013 while continuing to write new material for himself. In early 2016, he released his third solo effort, a self-titled LP on Merge Records, accompanied by the announcement that he would retire the Crooked Fingers project and shift his focus to a proper solo career. In late 2018 he returned with the sparse and somewhat despairing collection No Recover.
Led by Latin GRAMMY-nominated accordionist, pianist, and composer Sam Reider, the Human Hands is an innovative collective of acoustic musicians exploring the crossroads of folk, jazz, and classical music from around the world. Irresistible melodies, joyful improvisation and otherworldly sounds collide in what Songlines Magazine has dubbed a “mash-up of the Klezmatics, Quintette du Hot Club de France and the Punch Brothers.” The New York Times calls it “modern folk music with saxophone and accordion.” The group got its start playing late night sessions at well-known dive bars and music venues in Brooklyn. After releasing their debut record, Too Hot to Sleep, in 2018, they toured throughout the US, UK, and Europe appearing at premier venues and festivals like Jazz at Lincoln Center, Celtic Connections, and SFJAZZ. Their concerts have aired on PBS and the BBC.
Sam Reider and the Human Hands will be performing new music off their upcoming record, The Golem and Other Tales (June 2024). The album features a through-composed suite of music entitled “The Golem,” alongside five other original compositions that elicit echoes of Django Reinhardt, Planxty, Duke Ellington, Astor Piazzolla, Bernard Hermann and Raymond Scott. The medieval legend of the Golem tells the story of a clay man brought to life by a rabbi. In a time of darkness, the rabbi prays for a hero to deliver his community from evil. One night, a mysterious stranger shows up at the rabbi’s door and convinces the rabbi to build a golem. With his assistants, the rabbi gathers clay, sculpts a giant man, and inscribes the word for “truth” on its forehead. At the stroke of midnight, when the final letter is completed, the golem comes to life. The supernatural being performs heroic acts but quickly spins out of control as it yearns to become more and more human. After falling in love with the rabbi’s daughter, the golem is ambushed by its creators, chased and destroyed.
This concert will feature: violinist/cellist Duncan Wickel (Rising Appalachia), saxophonist Eddie Barbash (Jon Batiste), guitarist Roy Williams (Stephane Wrembel), and bassist Andrew Ryan (Kaia Kater).
Long-time friends and collaborators Emily Mann and Wila Frank, known together as Paper Wings, dream up warm, pastoral folk songs suited to wandering through a forest or field, quiet contemplation, and long winding journeys. Furnished with delicate banjo and spellbinding harmonies so close you often can’t tell their voices apart, Frank & Mann deliver dynamic performances emboldened by the strength of their sincere songwriting. The duo have an uncommon ability to tastefully reference nostalgic sounds of American folk music while maintaining their own compelling style of artful and unpretentious lyricism. The strength and solitude one finds in the wilderness is a theme throughout their writing, and they lovingly transport listeners to open landscapes in which to find comfort and ask the questions which we all have in common.
Both with roots in rural parts of the West Coast, Mann & Frank eventually found their way to Nashville where they recorded their debut album Paper Wings in 2017 and sophomore album Clementine which came out in 2019. In 2020 the duo were on the road opening for Avi Kaplan’s ‘I’ll Get By’ tour. It was soon after this that they shared Marigold, the first pre-released single from the upcoming album which is a delicate and hope-filled ode to new beginnings and second chances. This is the first peek into their upcoming album which explores themes of grounding and rediscovering a sense of innocence.
Don Mitchell is a songwriter, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer based in Waltham, MA. Over the last decade and change, he’s recorded and toured extensively with indie-folk band Darlingside and in the past few years has been focusing on producing/engineering records for others. Don grew up singing in children’s choirs, started writing songs and forming bands in high school, studied music theory and creative fiction at Williams College, and other than a three-year sidequest as a field biologist/ornithologist in his early 20s, has been making music in one way or another ever since.
An Irish singer-songwriter, Pat Byrne has come a long way since his first deal with Universal. In late 2017, Byrne began his migration to Austin, Texas. In 2019, Pat took the US by storm, with breakout performances at the 30A Festival, SXSW, Kerrville Folk Festival and the Americana Festival. Being immersed in the Texas music scene, Pat’s sophomore US release, Into the Light, had an edgier feel underscoring both emotional depth and greater confidence, while blending new influences with his rich Irish heritage.
Following Into The Light, Byrne delivered strong new works in 2022. His unmistakable voice and cinematic lyrics continue to touch our universal humanity. Supported by legendary musicians from Emmylou Harris’s band he presents another gem with “Only a Man”. Recorded at The Next Waltz with Bruce Robison and band, “Until it Isn’t” is a gorgeous rendition wistfully recalling lost love. Byrne’s December2022 release, “Feels Like Living”, makes palpable the working musician’s struggle and uncertainty, underpinned by a nostalgic arrangement of strings and harmonium.
Cuchulain is a low-voiced songwriter with a wry wit. The NPR Music-featured folk singer released an album of long distance pandemic collaborations called FEAT on Nov 5, 2021 that was called “an as-yet-unpublished portion of the Great American Songbook.” Cuchulain’s deep baritone and clever lyrics have drawn comparisons to Randy Newman, Leonard Cohen, and Johnny Cash. From rooms as big as the Kennedy Center or as small as a friend’s living room, Cuchulain’s lyrics have brought laughs and tears to audiences across the US and beyond as he shared the stage with renowned folk acts including Ira Wolf, Jeffrey Lewis, Viv & Riley, Billy Keane, Upstate, and more. His “Sing In The Shower” single release tour took him to Europe in the summer of 2022, and his nationwide My Dog single release tour criss-crossed the US in summer 2023. His new album Minute To Win It – a visual album of 20 songs in 20 minutes – is out now and taking the world by storm.
Kate McCann, also known as Princess Pine, is a folk singer and banjo player based in Belfast, Maine. Kate grew up singing with the Chorus of Westerly in Westerly, Rhode Island, studied classical voice throughout high school, and found folk music during her time as a student at Bennington College. This led her to spend a semester abroad in Limerick, Ireland and write a thesis on the Irish ballad singing tradition.
From 2014 – 2019 Kate lived a transient life traveling around the U.S. and living in different parts of the U.S. as well as a year spent in New Zealand. She began learning the banjo when the tour bus of a folk-punk band she was traveling with broke down and spent a month stranded in the mechanic’s garage on the outskirts of Austin, TX. In 2019 she took a job as a chanteyman at the Mystic Seaport Museum- performing sea chanteys onboard ships and around the museum grounds for patrons of the museum. It was also there she met Yves Corbiere and A.J. Wright and formed the trio Skylark Trad Band.
Kate now lives in Belfast, Maine where she spends her time playing folk music, and occasionally works as a carpenter, farmhand, and deckhand. She is available for a variety of performances ranging from sea chantey workshops to folk music sets. She is also a regular DJ on local community radio station WERU’s old-time program “High on a Mountain.” As an avid music collector and listener, she believes traditional music is not static but ever evolving, and incorporates her love of psychedelia, rock, and punk into her playing.
Since meeting as conservatory students in 2003, for the past 20 years Seven Times Salt has been delighted to bring the music of the 16th and 17th centuries to our audiences, with a special focus on the English Consort repertory. Praised for creative programming and an “impeccably balanced sound” (American Recorder Society), Seven Times Salt has performed at venues throughout New England including Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Plimoth Patuxet, Boston Public Library, New England Folk Festival, WGBH radio, and many others. We have researched and presented original programs for music festivals, college residencies, theatrical productions, historical societies, and our own self-produced concert series. We delight in blurring the lines between “art music” and folk tunes, and feel at ease performing in the concert hall, the dance hall, or the beer hall!
