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.

Chicago native son Al Scorch brings his roots-punk string band, Al Scorch & The Country Soul Ensemble back to Madison for a 2018 two-fer: an appearance at the High Noon Saloon on March 29, 2018, and a featured spot at this year’s Sugar Maple Music Festival on Friday, August 3.  Scorch’s live performances are legendary for their energy and drive, as he and his band seamlessly combine bluegrass, punk, folk and roots into a tasty, substantial musical hot dish.

After his early days with his brother in an Irish folk-rock band, Scorch first emerged  as a solo artist and songwriter, leaving his indelible stamp on the Windy City music scene.  His subsequent formation of the Country Soul Ensemble and a series of albums, including his latest, Circle Round The Signs, produced by Bloodshot Records, have fueled Scorch’s growing recognition across the US, Canada and abroad as a perceptive and exciting force in American string music.

Al’s acknowledged musical influences encompass everything from Beethoven to Dolly Parton, from Woody Guthrie to the Minutemen.  Just when you’re catching up with one of his lightning-fast banjo riffs and well-aimed lyrics about social justice, he’ll slow it down to a silky, soulful croon about lost love, or a ballad that elegantly morphs from despair to hope.  With his huge voice and natural charisma, and the virtuoso talents of his Country Soul Ensemble, every Al Scorch show becomes an event that audiences don’t soon forget.

–written by Brad Wolbert

Award-winning Cincinnati favorites The Tillers return to the Sugar Maple Festival in 2018, bringing Southern Wisconsin another hard-driving dose of punk- and bluegrass-infused traditional American music.  Their first ten years as a band have taken them all over North America and Europe, as well as a feature appearance on Tom Brokaw’s documentary on US Highway 50, and have yielded five albums of increasingly innovative takes on familiar string band music that range from high-energy rockers to tender harmonic ballads.

The band’s latest album, The Tillers (2018), is fresh out of the studio.  Check out this track and video.

The Tillers keep adding new songs and sonic ideas to their repertoire, but at the end of the day their wheelhouse is the classic American folk song, with a melody older than their grandparents, but with a thump and twang all their own.

–written by Brad Wolbert

The Sugar Maple Music Festival invites you to play along!  Join local fiddle phenoms Rin Ribble and Tina Thompson as they lead the Little Fiddler’s workshop designed for young fiddle players of all skill levels. Participants will learn about the musical styles they’ll hear all weekend long at Sugar Maple.

And don’t miss this chance to attend a guitar workshop with Molly Tuttle!  A graduate of the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Molly might be young, but she has already earned a reputation as one of the most virtuosic guitar players on today’s bluegrass scene. In this interactive workshop, Molly will demonstrate different styles of rhythm guitar to help participants improve their own rhythm playing.

Want more chances to play along?  Start your Saturday morning right at the Bloody Mary jam at the Roots & Reasons stage then move over to the jam tent where hosted and ad hoc jams continue through the day.  There will be a bluegrass jam hosted by Southern Wisconsin Bluegrass Music Association, a Cajun jam hosted by T’Monde and an old-time jam hosted by Glass Mountain.

“The group highlights the haunting underbelly of the sounds of traditional Americana and early country music… Glass Mountain’s music stuns in its ability to capture the past with elegance and triumph.”    -Chicago Tribune

Sugar Maple Music Festival is proud to announce that Glass Mountain is in our 2017 lineup! Glass Mountain is a Chicago-based band that brings old-time and early country music to life. The American folk trio includes Heather Malyuk, Sara Leginsky, and Ari Bolles. They are three dedicated singers and multi-instrumentalists who came together to create a mixture of mountain ballads and love songs that will touch a part of your soul.

Glass Mountain released their latest album Restless Mind, in 2106. The album highlights Glass Mountain’s devotion to their craft and the band’s ability to add their own creative touches to make music that sounds both traditional and new.

–written by Daniel Seifried