The Sugar Maple Concert Series welcomes April Verch, Tuesday April 3, 2018 at 7:00 pm to the North Street Cabaret.

While Verch is perhaps best known for playing traditional fiddle styles from her native Ottawa Valley, Canada, her performances extend into old-time American and Appalachian styles and beyond, for a well-rounded tour-de-force of North Americana sounds. Verch tours with world-class musicians as a trio, featuring acoustic guitar, mandolin, bass and clawhammer banjo in addition to Verch’s vocals, fiddle and foot percussion.

One might suspect a performer with as many talents as Verch would pause to take a breath, or need to somewhat compartmentalize her skills during a live performance. But on stage, Verch is almost superhuman, flawlessly intertwining and overlapping different performative elements. She stepdances while fiddling. She sings while stepdancing. Sometimes she sings, steps and fiddles all at once, with apparent ease and precision. Verch is – as they say – a triple threat in performance, her live show a beautiful companion to her music: versatile, robust, and masterfully executed.

Preparations for the fifteenth annual Sugar Maple Music Festival are in full swing and the lineup is sure to be one for the record books. In addition to the main event in August, music lovers should mark their calendars for three events being organized as part of the Sugar Maple Concert Series. The prelude will draw in some legendary groups including the Claire Lynch Band, April Verch Band, and Freddy & Francine. Tickets are available for all three shows now via Brown Paper Tickets (search for Sugar Maple Presents.) A portion of the proceeds will help produce the annual festival, which is organized by the nonprofit Four Lakes Traditional Music Collective and staged entirely by volunteers.

Claire Lynch Band, whose accolades include three Grammy nominations, six International Bluegrass Music Association awards, and the prestigious United States Artists Walker Fellowship, will be at the Bos Meadery on March 22 at 7:30 p.m.. “Lynch is the perfect mix of that famed trio Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton. She’s got the interpretive skills of Ronstadt, the clear and pure voice of Harris and the bluegrass soul of Parton … but she deserves all the accolades we can toss her way.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Tickets here!

The second concert will feature April Verch Band taking the stage at the North St. Cabaret on April 3 at 7:00 p.m.. April is an award winning fiddler, singer, and step dancer who has performed around the world, including festival, theatre and performing arts center appearances. “It’s about joining together to celebrate everyday life, through music.  We’re all in this together.” Verch said. Tickets here!

Bringing it home on April 19 at 8:00 p.m., Freddy & Francine will play at the North St. Cabaret. An Americana-Soul duo comprised of Bianca Caruso and Lee Ferris,  with voices reminiscent of Aretha Franklin and Van Morrison, their songs blend Soul, R&B, Folk, and Americana with a modern, yet timeless appeal to all ages. Tickets here!

The Sugar Maple Music Festival, with support of SWBMAI, welcomes Claire Lynch and her band, Thursday, March 22 at 7:30pm at the Bos Mead Hall

Long recognized and praised as a creative force in acoustic music, Claire Lynch is a pioneer who continually pushes the boundaries of the bluegrass genre. Her career has been decorated with many accolades including three GRAMMY nominations, six International Bluegrass Music Association awards and the prestigious United States Artists Walker Fellowship.

Dolly Parton credits Claire with “one of the sweetest, purest and best lead voices in the music business today.” Her harmonies have graced the recordings of many stellar musicians. Equally gifted as a writer, her songs have been recorded by The Seldom Scene, Patty Loveless, Kathy Mattea, Cherryholmes, The Whites and others.

Blazing her own trail in the mid 70’s when there were few role models for young women in the genre, Claire Lynch made history when she led the Front Porch String Band which evolved in the 80’s and 90’s into “one of the sharpest and most exciting post-modern bluegrass bands on the circuit.” She formed her own Claire Lynch Band in 2005 and has since consistently been a top pick of prestigious publications, critics and audiences across the U.S. and beyond.

$20 Advance tickets / $25 at the door

Circus No.9

Based out of East Tennessee, Circus No.9 is a new progressive acoustic group that embraces the influence of Bluegrass, Jazz, Rock, and more. The group has appeared on stage alongside artists including David Grisman, Bryan Sutton, Larry Keel, and more. With awarded musicians Matthew Davis (2016 National Banjo Champion, 2017 Rockygrass Banjo Champion), Thomas Cassell (2016 Rockygrass Mandolin Champion), bassist Vince Ilagan, and guitarist Jed Clark, Circus No.9 is taking the new acoustic scene by force.  Catch them at North Street Cabaret Friday, January 19 at 8 pm as part of the Sugar Maple Concert Series.

And don’t miss Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn at the Capitol Theater Friday February 16.   Béla Fleck is a fifteen-time Grammy Award winner who has taken the instrument across multiple genres, and Abigail Washburn a singer-songwriter and clawhammer banjo player who re-radicalized it by combining it with Far East culture and sounds.  Echo in the Valley is the follow-up to Béla and Abigail’s acclaimed, self-titled debut that earned the 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album. This time around, the mission was to take their double banjo combination of three finger and clawhammer styles “to the next level and find things to do together that we had not done before,” says Béla. “We’re expressing different emotions through past techniques and going to deeper places.” The results are fascinating, especially considering their strict rules for recording: all sounds must be created by the two of them, the only instruments used are banjos (they have seven between them, ranging from a ukulele to an upright bass banjo), and they must be able to perform every recorded song live.

Both events sponsored by Sugar Maple Music Festival

Exploring American Roots Music

Molly Tuttle
Thursday Jan 12, 7:30 pm (2 sets)
The Barrymore Theatre Lobby
Tickets $10 in advance by phone, on-line or at the door
Presented by the Four Lakes Traditional Music Collective

“[Molly Tuttle] sings with the gentle authority of Gillian Welch, yet plays astoundingly fleet flat-picking guitar like Chet Atkins on superdrive.”  – American Songwriter Magazine

A virtuoso multi-instrumentalist and award winning songwriter with a distinctive voice, Molly Tuttle has turned the heads of even the most seasoned industry professionals. Since her performing debut at age 11, she’s appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, was featured on the cover of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine (the first woman ever to be featured on the cover), won first place in the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Competition at MerleFest, and recently graduated from the Berklee College of Music, which she attended on a Hazel Dickens Memorial Scholarship.

Her lovely voice, impeccable and fiery guitar playing, and sensitive song writing make Molly Tuttle a star on the rise. She has already received more than two million YouTube views and, with her project The Goodbye Girls, appeared on the Newport Folk Festival and opened a series of sold out theater shows in Fall 2015 on tour with The Milk Carton Kids. In 2016, the Molly Tuttle Band has toured extensively and will be featured on several prominent festivals including Rocky Grass Festival, Wintergrass Festival, and many others, and received a 2016 IBMA Momentum Award as Instrumentalist, singling her out as one to watch in the genre. Molly now makes her home in Nashville and has completed work on her debut solo album with producer Kai Welch, to be released in early 2017.