Tune those strings and grab your bow; the Concord Community Music School will host its first ever Fall Fiddle Festival this weekend.
The festivities begin Friday night with a performance of blended-genre music by Fugue Mill. Mark Shilansky’s group combines jazz, Americana, world and classical music. The blend of sound includes original compositions and music written by those such as Leonard Cohen, Thelonious Monk and Samuel Barber.
Shilansky studied jazz piano with Michael Annicchiarico and was a member of the 1987-88 Scholarship Jazz Ensemble at CCMS under the direction of David Tonkin. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in piano performance at the University of New Hampshire, and an master’s in jazz studies at New England Conservatory, where he is now pursuing a doctoral degree. He also maintains his busy performance schedule with a number of jazz artists, as well as teaching ear training, arranging, and ensembles at Berklee College of Music.
Fugue Mill’s violin and mandolin will be accompanied by a trio of piano, guitar and bass. The members have previously performed with Luciana Souza, Esperanza Spalding, Stevie Wonder and Darol Anger.
The music will be diverse and linked through improvisation and groove.
Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. show will be $15 or $12 for students and seniors.
On Saturday, the music school will lead a series of workshops on a mix of skill levels and styles. All are recommended for teenagers and older and have basic knowledge of their instrument.
Pascal Gemme will lead Quebecois fiddle workshops. Canadian Folk Music Awards laureate many times over, Gemme has been touring the world as the fiddle hero in the Quebecois trio Genticorum for the last 14 years. Recently, a generous offer from a French record label sent him exploring through his personal collections of seldom-heard French-Canadian fiddle tunes and his latest solo album, Violon du Quebec, was recorded in the outskirts of Paris and released at the end of 2013. Gemme will guide attendees through the reels, galopes, jigs, cotillions, polkas and waltzes that have enriched and sustained his culture in North America for the last 400 years.
His performances tell the tales of the French-Canadian men and women who have carried these melodies through the generations, and it is this strong link with his roots, coupled with his infectious joie de vivre, that have made him a crowd pleaser internationally.
Mariel Vandersteel will teach Scandinavian and old-time fiddle. Vandersteel is a musician, educator, graphic designer and visual artist currently living in Boston. Since graduating from Berklee College of Music, Vandersteel has established herself as a folk musician of multiple styles, recorded her first solo album, Hickory; lived in Norway while studying the hardingfele; and toured Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India, Bangladesh and has performed across North America multiple times.
She has performed and taught nationally and internationally with Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards, Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers, The Three Irish Tenors, Emma Beaton, Annalivia, Putnam Smith and participated in the Savannah Music Festival’s first acoustic music seminar working with artists Zakir Hussein, Edgar Meyer, Mike Marshall, Tony Trischka, and Chris Thile.
Elizabeth Faiella will present on Irish fiddle. An Irish fiddler with New England contradance flair and classical sensitivities, Faiella has captivated audiences at premier folk venues, contradances, and festivals across New England. Along with her brother, guitarist Dan Faiella, she has performed at Club Passim, the Boston Celtic Music Festival, the New England Folk Festival, the Acadia Trad Festival, and New Hampshire’s Seacoast Irish Festival. In 2015, Faiella was selected by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts to conduct fieldwork on the history of contradancing in New Hampshire.
She teaches fiddle lessons and coaches folk ensembles at the Concord Community Music School in Concord. She has sung in vocal groups at the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College, and studied sean-nós Irish singing with Bridget Fitzgerald at Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann in Boston. Faiella has led workshops for the Strathspey and Reel Society of N.H., Maine Fiddle Camp and Acadia School of Traditional Music and Arts.
The Fall Fiddle Festival will conclude with a concert by workshop presenters Gemme, Vandersteel and Faiella on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The concert will include songs that represent the variety of fiddling traditions.
Like the Friday concert, tickets will be $15 or $12 for students and seniors.
For information or tickets, visit ccmusicschool.org or call 228-1196.