|
August 2 - 3
|
The Four Lakes Traditional Music Collective would like to thank everyone for making 2010 the most attended year ever. We officially sold out for the first time in our seven years!
Special thanks to our volunteers who we literally could not do the fest without. Thanks to all the bands for their fantastic performances. Thanks to our sponsors for their kind contributions. Thanks to the park staff for their hospitality. Thanks to our vendors for keeping us fat with food. Thanks to my fellow board members (and über volunteers) for their tireless efforts (which includes putting up with yours truly). And last but certainly not least, thanks to our patrons, who share our love of the music.
Oh, and thanks to the weather gods for their mercy and to the inventors of deet.
Singer-songwriter Tim O’Brien has an uncanny intersection of traditional and contemporary elements in his music, as well as the array of instruments he utilizes, and the diversity of the artists who preform his songs, such as the Dixie Chicks, Nickel Creek, and Seldom Scene. O’Brien, in addition to collaborating with Steve Martin and the Chieftains, among others, has most recently been performing with Mark Knopfler’s band. Knopfler describes O’Brien as “a master of American folk music, Irish music, Scottish music….”
Mixing O’Brien originals, collaborations, and a handful of outside compositions, Chicken & Egg is an illuminating, engaging, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on the art of living. “This stuff reflects what goes on in the life of someone my age,” O’Brien reflects. “I’m 56 years old. I’m not the young kid on the scene – and I’m happy about that. I’m at a strange point in my life: my kids are growing up, while my parents and teachers are passing on. There’s a lot happening – but it’s just life, and that’s what this album is about. There’s a little love song action here and there, but mostly it’s about living life.”
O’Brien listens to bluegrass and hears the music’s roots in modal Irish ballads and vintage swing. He insightfully re-examines and reconstructs those styles, and many others, in his own music, throwing off new sparks by reawakening the tension and interplay of the colliding components at the heart of American music. “Over the years,” he explains, “my music has become a certain thing. Each time I go into the studio to make a new album, I could make an Irish record, or a bluegrass record, or a country record…but it seems artificial to sift anything out. I feel like I’d be leaving out something important. In the end, I just try to make it round…”
Tim plays two sets at 2pm and 7:30pm on Saturday. He will also take part in the Fiddlers In The Round workshop at 3pm, Saturday.
Ginny and Tracy met in 1988 when both were on staff at the Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp near Woodstock, NY. They soon discovered that, despite their differing childhoods, they shared a deep understanding of and love for the music of the rural south. It was Ginny’s birthright and Tracy’s lifetime devotion. Ginny’s father, Ben Hawker, was her mentor growing up. Together, they taught the beautiful old singing of his Primitive Baptist Church for ten years at the Augusta Heritage Workshops in Elkins, WV. He went with her to the Smithsonian, the Chicago Folk Festival and the Vancouver Folk Festival where their family harmony left an indelible memory with their listeners. Ben also introduced her to early Bluegrass harmony through the oral tradition. For the past 15 years, Ginny and Tracy have appeared in concerts and festivals throughout the United States, Canada, and England. Their harmonies are hair-raising and representative of the finest American traditional music. In addition to performances, each summer they teach southern traditional singing at several music camps. Recently they have started teaching students in their West Virginia home.
Ginny and Tracy play at 4:30pm on Saturday. Tracy also plays the Old-Time dance on Friday night and will take part in the Fiddlers In The Round workshop at 3pm, Saturday.
Liz Carroll won the Senior All-Ireland Championship on fiddle when she was 18 and has since become one of the more sought after traditional music performers. Her first solo album, Liz Carroll released in 1988, was chosen as a select record of American folk music by the Library of Congress. Liz was also named Traditional Performer of the Year in 2000 by the “Irish Echo”. Although she plays Irish traditional dance tunes, her records also feature original compositions that highlight the traditional styles. Carroll is a huge draw for traditional music conniseurs and the general public alike, as indicated by her draw and awards. In 1994, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded Liz a National Heritage Fellowship for her great influence on Irish music in America, as a performer and a composer. More recently, her 2009 duet album Double Play with John Doyle, was nominated for a 2010 Grammy for Best Traditional World Music Album, and she and John were invited to play for President Obama at the White house.
Dáithí Sproule of Derry, is one of Irish music’s most respected guitar accompanists, and one of the first guitarists to develop DADGAD tuning for Irish music. He is also a fine singer in English and Irish. Sproule’s original compositions have been recorded by Skara Brae, the Bothy Band, Altan, Trian, Liz Carroll, Aoife Clancy, the RTE Concert Orchestra and others. He is also known for his innovative arrangements of traditional songs, and in 1995 he released his first solo album, A Heart Made of Glass, with songs in English and Irish. In 2008 he released an instrumental guitar album, The Crow In the Sun, featuring thirteen original compositions. In addition to performing and recording, Dáithí is a sought-after teacher and lecturer in subjects ranging from guitar styles and song accompaniment to Irish traditional music, language and literature. He is a 2009 Bush Artist Fellow, awarded by the Minnesota based Archibald Bush Foundation.
Liz and Dáithí play at 6pm on Saturday. Liz will also be included in the Fiddlers In The Round workshop at 3pm, Saturday.
For our Saturday evening dance, and the festival closer, we are lucky to have Dennis Stroughmatt and the Creole Spirit. Stroughmatt is an Illinois native who was first introduced to American French culture as a teenager near Old Mines, Missouri. He then spent two and a half intensive years recording, observing, and learning many of the Creole French traditions still alive in “Upper Louisiana”. The knowledge that he gained there included a centuries old French Creole fiddling style, fluency in Illinois-Missouri Creole French, and a wealth of stories and songs from story tellers and singers; all of which have been handed down generation to generation in Missouri and Illinois for nearly 300 years.
Dennis Stroughmatt and Creole Spirit host a jam on Saturday at 4:30pm and then play the dance that night at 9pm.
