99
North Main
Rochester, VT 05767
(802) 767-9670
BigTown BigTent 2010 A Summer Festival of Poetry, Music, |
 |
Performances each evening. Schedule includes the following events:
Saturday, July 31 -Etran Finatawa (sponsored by Green Mountain bikes)
7:00pm, $25 • the performance will be 90 minutes
Sunday, August 1 - Magicians without Borders
2:00pm, $7 • the performance will be approx 1 hour
Sunday, August 1- Galway Kinnell (sponsored by Sandy's Books & Bakery)
6:00pm, $15 • poetry reading will be approx 1 hour
Monday, August 2 - Annie & the Beekeepers
7:00pm, $15 • the performance will be approx. 3 hrs.
Tuesday, August 3 - BigTalent Variety Show
7:00pm, $15 • Keith Bush, Scott Forest, Aaron Marcus, Peter Thomashow • the performance will be approx. 3 hrs.
Wednesday, August 4 -Inner Fire District
7:00pm, $15 • the performance will be approx. 3 hrs.
Thursday, August 5- They Might Be Gypsies
7:00pm, $15 • the performance will be approx. 3 hrs.
Friday, August 6 - Hey Mama (sponsored by The Village Porch Bar & Bistro)
7:00pm, $15 • the performance will be approx. 3 hrs.
Saturday, August 7 - Lew Soloff, Joe Locke
with George Mraz (sponsored by The Huntington House Inn)
7:00pm, $30 • the performance will be approx. 3 hrs.
Sunday, August 8 -Magicians without Borders (sponsored by The Rochester Cafe)
2:00pm, $7 • the performance will be approx 1 hour
Sunday, August 8 - Vijay Seshadri
6:00pm, $15 • poetry reading will be approx 1 hour
Tickets available by phone at 802-767-9670
For those heading to VT this summer be sure to include BigTown/BigTent in your plans for some tremendously entertaining evenings.
ETRAN FINITAWAis a Niger based band, formed in 2004, as part of the Festival au D'sert near Timbuktu. Etran Finatawa quickly became popular in Niger and were invited to perform at festivals in Mali and Morocco. They released their BBC Award-nominated debut, Introducing Etran Finatawa, in 2006, and released a second album, Desert Crossroads, “a nostalgic look at life in the desert,“ in 2008. Since their creation they have toured all over the world, including stops in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Singapore, South America and Europe. The music of Etran Finatawa blends North African Woodabe and Tuareg styles with the modern, as in electric guitars, to create a unique "nomadic blues." Their songs tell true tales of the nomadic life, of the grasslands of the Sahel and arid desert; of isolation and liberty, hardship and poverty; of harsh climate, happy days, and beautiful women; of festivities and families, of life giving animals, of endless stars and desert storms. But most of all, their distinctive polyphonic singing and mesmerizing percussion are (in any language) an invitation to dance. Etran Finatawa have toured the world extensively since 2005, including Europe and the United States 2005. In 2007, their debut album Introducing Etran Finatawa was nominated for a BBC Radio Award for World Music. Their album Desert Crossroads, was released in 2007. Tarkat Tajje is their most recent album, released in 2010. These are international performers who have toured all over the world. ($25)
AUG 1 & AUG 8 --- MAGICIANS WITHOUT BORDERS
MAGICIANS WITHOUT BORDERS performs magic shows for children in refugee camps, orphanages and hospitals around the world -often in war torn places where love, laughter and magic are desperately needed. Magicians Without Borders began when Tom Verner, a professor of Psychology, was traveling through Eastern Europe in 2001 and did some magic shows in the refugee camps of Kosovo and Macedonia. The shows were so well received, that Tom decided to take a leave from his teaching and perform full time. Tom and his wife Janet, along with other magicians and theater teachers travel to El Salvador every three months where they perform for children in the countryside and are teaching magic and theater skills to the children in the ASAPROSAR's Barefoot Angels program. Magicians Without Borders sponsors a week long Magic, Theater and Art Camp for these children who live in grinding poverty surrounded by brutal gang violence. These young magicians have already begun to perform in orphanages, hospitals and disaster areas in El Salvador. One day some of them may travel with Tom and Janet to bring magic and laughter to other poor children in other parts of the world. ($7)
GALWAY KINNELL is a nationally recognized poet who has spent most of his life in VT. Wikipedia calls him "one of the most influential American poets of the latter half of the 20th century." Kinnell has received many awards and grants for his writing including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, the 1974 Shelley Prize of the Poetry Society of America, and the 1975 Medal of Merit from National Institute of Arts and Letters. From 2001 to 2007, he served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and has been the poet-in-residence at numerous colleges and universities, including the University of California at Irvine, Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, and Brandeis. Until retiring from teaching, he was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing at New York University. Kinnell's Selected Poems (1980) received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. A New Selected Poems (2000) was a finalist for the National Book Award. ($15)
AUG 2 --- ANNIE & THE BEEKEEPERS
ANNIE & THE BEEKEEPERS is a folk and country inspired trio that met at Berklee College of Music in December 2006. In the summer of 2007, Annie and the Beekeepers joined Grammy-nominated producer, Jack Gauthier, at his lakeside studio for the recording of their debut, self-titled album, Annie Lynch and the Beekeepers. The album was released in January of 2008 and has been played frequently on WERS Emerson Radio and WUMB Boston Folk Radio, and earned fans at The Boston Globe and various other regional publications and blogs. Annie and the Beekeepers went on to play 2008's Boston Folk Festival, CMJ and South By Southwest in 2009. To that end, the songs on their first album, 2008's Annie Lynch and the Beekeepers and the forthcoming EP, Squid Hell Sessions (May 12, 2009), are honest, collaborative efforts, drawing on the sounds of Joni Mitchell, Gillian Welch, Bob Dylan, and CSNY.($15)
Scott Forrest (pianist & guitarist), Keith Bush (pianist), The Turning Stile, and Peter Thomashow (guitarist). Each of these performer/composers, local to us, perform region-wide, and record, and are noted for their serious musianship. Performing individually, each for 30 minutes, they will offer an eclectic mix their own music and not-often-heard standards of their genre. ($10)
Scott Forrest wrote his first song at the age of five, and one of his original songs was chosen to be performed on Valentine’s Day on The Prairie Home Companion in 2009. He spent time as a songwriter in Nashville and has performed all along the eastern seaboard. Scott describes his music as “heavy mental” with themes of love and irony. His music is a unique blend of folk, rock, and jazz with Brazilian rhythms and thought-provoking lyrics. His performance will feature songs from his recently released CD When I’m in Paris, as well as other original tunes.
The Turning Stile, composed of Joanne Garton (fiddle) and Aaron Marcus (piano, concertina, banjo, step dance), plays traditional, yet inventive, dance music from Scotland, Cape Breton, England, Appalachia, and their own original works, while making many more stops around the globe. Aaron and Joanne both grew up dancing to folk music, while training in classical music, both beginning at age 5. As avid dancers of many traditions, they find their calling improvising to the rhythms of dancing feet hitting the floor. The Hancock/Montpelier duo now plays at varied dance venues and as guests on VPR's interlude program.
INNER FIRE DISTRICT is indubitably Vermont's finest Radical Yiddish/Balkan Chamber Folk Trio. IFD was founded in 2006 by former Black Sea Quartet front man David Symons, who has been called "the hottest and most obsessively intense accordion player in the neighborhood" by Vermont's folk traditions researcher and commentator, Robert Resnik. Multi-instrumentalist and musical prodigy, Zoe Christiansen plays clarinet. Upright bassist, Tyler Bolles slides effortlessly between melodic, cello-like arco, and percussive Romanian-rockabilly slaps. Symons sings, growls, and howls in Yiddish and English while firing harmonic minor-keyed fusillades from his accordion. Inner Fire District's music cannot be easily reduced to description. They play a schmaltz-free brand of European klezmer (no Bei Mir Bistu Sheyn, no Hava Nagila.) but refuse to ghettoize themselves by genre, also doing tango-inspired Symons originals, the odd David Bowie cover, and old, radical, working-class songs, that not only reflect a vital commitment to their musical sources but express a deeply felt solidarity with the world's powerless. ($15)
AUG 5 --- THEY MIGHT BE GYPSIES
Inspired by the 1930's Gypsy Jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli and contemporary Gypsy master musicians as well, THEY MIGHT BE GYPSIES plays high energy, uplifting music with tremendous passion. The core of the group is comprised of father and son duo Greg and Aidan Ryan, but they can also be seen performing as a full band. A Gypsy at heart, Greg grew up traveling and playing music. He picked up the guitar at a young age, performing with his mother's bluegrass band and later enjoyed sitting in with his stepfather's South American folk group. Greg loves all kinds of music and draws inspiration from many genres. He is a passionate and energetic performer. Aidan is just fourteen years old but you wouldn't know it by listening to him. He has been playing the guitar since he was four and performing for audiences since he was six. He has already recorded two CDs of original music. Aidan is a fabulous guitarist and a truly gifted musician. ($15)
HEY MAMA have played more than 150 shows and festivals throughout the Northeast and Canada, and have released a third full length album, self-titled Hey Mama. The Boston Globe calls them "Sexy roots swagger with populist fire." This fire is an undeniable presence in their performances, which leave their audiences exultant and sweating. The band truly believes in freedom, and in every sense of the word embodies their commitment to that ideal on stage. Growing up at a camp directed by Pete Seeger's brother introduced Avi to folk music and the power of song. The idea that music can help repair our broken world is a foundation philosophy of the band. With this force in their voices, washboard and distorted guitars, Hey Mama bears the torch for a music of the people: ($15)
AUG 7 --- LEW SOLOFF & JOE LOCKE w/ GEORGE MRAZ
Lew Soloff is a jazz trumpeter, composer and .actor He studied trumpet at the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. He is likely best known for his work with Blood, Sweat & Tears from 1968 to 1973. Prior to this, he worked with Machito, Gil Evans, Tony Scott, and Tito Puente. He has also been a longtime member of the Manhattan Jazz Quintet. In the 1980s he was a member of Members Only, a jazz ensemble who recorded for Muse Records. He currently resides in New York City.Lew makes frequent guest appearances with jazz orchestras all over the world, such as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Magic City Jazz Orchestra.
Joe Locke has been voted the #1 vibist in DownBeat Magazine's Critic's Poll (TDWR) and Brazil's International Jazz Poll. Locke has recorded 20 CDs as a band leader, including the critically acclaimed "Moment to Moment", a tribute to the music of Henry Mancini. As producer and as a sideman, he appears on more than 65 recordings. As a jazz musician, Locke was precocious, having played with such luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Pepper Adams and Mongo Santamara before he was even out of high school. Since moving to New York City in 1981, Joe has performed with Grover Washington, Jr., Kenny Barron, Dianne Reeves, Eddie Daniels, Jerry Gonzales' Fort Apache Band, Rod Stewart, The Beastie Boys, Eddie Henderson, Hiram Bullock, Bob Berg, Ron Carter, Jimmie Scott, Geoffrey Keezer, The Mingus Big Band and Randy Brecker, among many others.
George Mraz George Mraz has recorded with Oscar Peterson, Tommy Flanagan, Roland Hanna, Hank Jones, Charles Mingus, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, NYJQ, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Toshiko Akioshi, Kenny Drew, Barry Harris, Tete Montoliu, Jimmy Rowles, Larry Willis, Richie Beirach, McCoy Tyner, Adam Makowicz, Jimmy Smith, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Pepper Adams, Art Pepper, Warne Marshe, Phil Woods, Grover Washington Jr., Archie Shepp, Dave Leibman, Joe Lovano, Jim Hall, John Abercrombie, Kenny Burrell, Larry Coryell, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Jon Faddis, Jimmy Knepper, Bob Brookmeyer, Jon Hendricks, Carmen McRae, Helen Merrill, Elvin Jones and many others. ($30)
VIJAY SESHADRI has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, and has been awarded The Paris Review's Bernard F. Conners Long Poem Prize and the MacDowell Colony's Fellowship for Distinguished Poetic Achievement. He holds an A.B. degree from Oberlin College and an M.F.A. from Columbia University. He currently teaches poetry and nonfiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College ($15)