Ken Waldman primarily plays old-time music, which predates bluegrass. Historically, this is a string-band music linked to Appalachia, though, really, there are variants most everywhere in North America. Some of the tunes he plays are more than two centuries old, though he also has recorded over a hundred he’s composed in the style.
Though solo fiddling has its own long-standing tradition—and Ken will still occasionally play solo, especially in conjunction with literary or storytelling events—there’s also a long tradition of fiddle and banjo, and of four-piece string-bands with fiddle, banjo, guitar, bass. The permutations are endless: some groups will add a second fiddle, or a mandolin, or will specialize in singing. Some will feature a percussive dancer.
While the music is more widely recognized as square dance music, it’s also music of a community, and made among friends. Where bluegrass invariably features hot virtuosic solos, old-time music is an ensemble affair, which relies on a shared background of listening to the music, and playing it.
Scottish Fish present a fresh take on traditional and contemporary Scottish and Cape Breton music. Their lively and unique arrangements are woven together from session music handed down from generations of the tradition’s finest players. They have performed at public and private venues and festivals across the United States and Europe including Boston Celtic Music Festival, Bellingham Celtic Festival, and Festival de Ortigueira. Their music and performances have earned them features on WGBH, KALW, and in American Girl and Folkworld Magazines; attracted the attention of programs such as America’s Got Talent; and secured an international audience of over three hundred thousand followers. In 2017, the group released their debut album, “Splash,” and followed it with “Tidings,” a 5-track holiday EP, in 2019. Their newest record, “Upscale,” produced by pianist and composer Neil Pearlman, was released in October, 2022, marking the band’s ten year anniversary.
Scottish Fish have been named as “one of the most energetic and creative acts to take root in the local Celtic music scene this century” by Boston Irish reporter Sean Smith, and Scottish Fiddler Hanneke Cassel has described their sound as “both incredibly musical, and just a little unusual.”
“Individually they are all creative and talented,” writes Cassel, “and together they spark each other, pushing each other even further to make amazing music.”
The Faux Paws have a problem. They’re a triangle band in a land of circles. Musically impossible to describe, they don’t even fit into todays often hyphenated-genre world. No fan, industry expert, nor member of the band can seem to sum up this band’s sound in any kind of marketable way. They continue to remain a singularly unique outfit in the acoustic music community, always on the fringes, always memorable and with an increasing number of die-hard fans who feel like they’ve uncovered a secret.
Is it bluegrass? Not usually. Old-time? Occasionally. Is it Celtic? Can’t quite say that. Is it Folk? Americana? Jazz? Singer-songwriter? None of the above, but members of the Paws have deep ties to all of these traditions and blend their elements effortlessly to serve whatever musical idea is being presented. So what can we say? This band takes risks. They’re dynamic, exciting, sincere, irreverent, infectious, and surprising. They move deftly between moods, influences and instruments but always maintaining a “groove” that pulses through the music like a heartbeat (you may not always be aware it’s there but it gives the thing life).
A Faux Paws live show is an explosive roller coaster ride that brings the audience along. Virtuosity on the fiddle, mandolin, guitar and saxophone, sure, but also vulnerability, personal lyrics, tight 3-part brother harmonies, playful interplay, intricately arranged details and soaring improvisations. With the considerable success and praise the band has seen since coming out of the pandemic the Paws decided to add long-time friend and collaborator Zoe Guigueno (Fish & Bird, Della Mae) to their touring outfit on upright bass whenever possible. Zoe only deepens the group’s already massive sound while freeing each member up for more creative expression on their various instruments.
Nicky Laboy – percussion (iyá) / Mike Ringquist – percussion (itótele) / Julian Loida – percussion (okónkolo)
INÃ plays, interprets, and reinterprets music of the African-Diaspora specifically through the traditional musics of Cuba and Brazil. Having just started in May of 2016, INÃ has already performed all around Boston at The Lilypad, Gallery 263, New England Conservatory’s Brown Hall, CityPOP Egleston, The Museum of Fine Arts for Make Music Boston, Arts at the Armory, and Magnolia Loft presented by Journeys in Sound (under their previous name “Bata Boston”). Through the use of singers and drummers they engage their audience with vocal harmonies, dancing, and drumming.
Percussionist, arranger, and bandleader Julian Loida leads this Afro-Cuban collective as he collaborates features eager students to master professionals together in performance as he seek to keep this music alive in the Boston area. This Club Passim performance features master Afro-Cuban drummer Nicky Laboy Cajadura as well as Michael Ringquist, a longtime Associate Professor of Percussion at the Berklee College of Music. This performance will premier the use of batá drums, a traditional Cuban hand-drum, in Club Passim.
Marhaba (or ‘Merhaba’ in Turkish) can mean ‘welcome’ or ‘hello’ in Arabic and Turkish and is meant to reflect the sound of this group! Orkestra Marhaba started in 2011 when a quartet of musicians coming back from a concert talked about their shared curiosity around makam – a system of defining musical scales in Turkish classical music.
As four minds are better than one, a working group of musicians in the Boston area came together every week with their different instruments to discover and strengthen their knowledge of makam and the world of Ottoman art music. Since then our ranks have grown and modified, and so has our music: Ottoman court music dating from the early 16th century to modern Turkish composers, light classical love songs called şarkı, short strophic hymns called ilahi, dance pieces such as sirto and longa, timeless folk music from the Anatolian landscape, Ayinleri(compositions for dervishes to turn to whose lyrics come from Rumi’s Mathnawi) and Turkish folk songs calledtürkü. Finally, an ever evolving series of original compositions, where our minds can feel free to fly with the help of makam theory.
The 500 year old Ottoman music tradition owes a lot to the contribution of women composers, performers and teachers of Turkish music and with their project Music of Turkish-Ottoman Women Composers, these musicians aim to shed light to the composers works of art, and present this unique genre of music with its traditional instruments. Oldest documentations and illustrations which have survived from the Ottoman period until now of women performing music are from the 16th century. Studying works of women composers help us understand the Ottoman tradition in a historical and musical context, and also the place of women in the music of Turkey, from then up until now.
Ceren Turkmenoglu – Violin, Rebab, Bendir, Voice
Volkan Efe – Oud, Ney, Kemence, Voice
Michael Harrist – Yayli Tanbur, Bendir, Double Bass
Tev Stevig – Tanbur, Saz, Oud
Zornitsa (Morning Star), founded in 1992, is a Bulgarian chorus and orchestra of men from the Boston area, directed by the acclaimed Bulgaria singer Tatiana Sarbinska.
Zornitsa performs traditional and urban Bulgarian songs, accompanied by the traditional Bulgarian instruments gaida (bagpipe), kaval (end-blown flute), gadulka (a bowed stringed instrument with sympathetic strings), tambura (a long-necked fretted stringed instrument), tarabuka (small drum), and tapan (large drum). Zornitsa has performed for many events in the Boston area and has traveled four times to Bulgaria, performing at the Koprivshtitsa Folk Festival, at the State Opera House in Blagoevgrad, and on Bulgarian National Television.
Mal Barsamian’s musical career began when he was four years old playing the dumbeg (hand drum) with his father Leo Barsamian at an Armenian picnic.
Mal comes from a family of oud players starting with his grandfather, great-uncle, his uncle and of course his father. He has gone on to become a sought-after oud player (lute) and clarinetist as well as other instruments such as dumbeg ( hand drum), guitar, bouzouki, and saxophone in Armenian, Greek, and Middle Eastern communities for forty years throughout the country.He performed with the late Esber Korporcu, an important figure in Boston’s Middle-Eastern music community, and has also appeared with Mehmet Sanlikol’s Dunya organization. Mal is a specialist in music written by Armenian composers active in Istanbul during the later years of the Ottoman Empire. Also trained as a classical guitarist, he obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in classical guitar performance studying with Robert Paul Sullivan from the New England Conservatory of Music. Mal is also on the applied faculty staff at Tufts University’s World Music Department, teaching oud, saxophone, clarinet and percussion. Applied faculty member at Boston College and also has the Middle Eastern Ensemble at New England Conservatory of Music.
GRAMMY Award Winner, Two-Time EMMY Nominee, 2020 U.S. Artists Fellow
Dom Flemons is originally from Phoenix, Arizona and currently lives in the Chicago area with his family. He has branded the moniker The American Songster® since his repertoire of music covers over 100 years of early American popular music. Flemons is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, actor, slam poet, music scholar, historian, and record collector. He is considered an expert player on the banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife and rhythm bones. Flemons was selected for the prestigious 2020 United States Artists Fellowship Award for the Traditional Arts category which was generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
In 2020, Dom Flemons re-issued his album titled Prospect Hill: “The American Songster Omnibus on Omnivore Recordings. The two CD album features three parts: the original Prospect Hill album, the 2015 EP What Got Over, and The Drum Major Instinct which includes twelve previously unissued instrumental tracks. His original song “I Can’t Do It Anymore” was released on a limited edition wax cylinder recording. Recently, he released a cover of the Elmore James classic “Shake Your Money Maker”, recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, alongside Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band and featured guest, legendary guitarist Steve Cropper. He played his six-string banjo (Big Head Joe), Quills, and Bones on Tyler Childers groundbreaking album Long Violent History and played jug alongside Brandford Marsalis on the soundtrack to Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Netflix.
Flemons currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Steve Martin Banjo Prize, Music Maker Relief Foundation and is a Governor on the Board of Directors for the Washington, D.C Chapter of the Recording Academy.
