Fall Fiddle Festival Brings Fiddles, Folk, and Fusion to Concord

CONCORD, N.H.—Bookended by toe-tapping, folk-infused concerts, the first ever Fall Fiddle Festival at the Concord Community Music School will feature the genre-defying band Fugue Mill, a stellar lineup of fiddlers, a jam-packed day of workshops and sessions, and a toe-tapping evening concert of Irish, Quebecois, Scandinavian, and Old-Time fiddle music.

From the spicy and spirit-lifting Quebecois music of Pascal Gemme, to Mariel Vandersteel's mesmerizing Scandinavian and Old-Time playing, to the danceable Celtic flair of fiddler Liz Faiella, the Fall Fiddle Festival promises to be an uplifting and fun-filled day of music.

The concerts and festival will take place October 21-22 at the Music School, 23 Wall Street in downtown Concord. Space is limited, and pre-registration is required for workshop participants.

Concert with Fugue Mill

Friday, October 21, 7:30 p.m.

Tickets $15/adults, $12/students & seniors, available at www.ccmusicschool.org or 603-228-1196

Kicking off the weekend, Mark Shilansky’s Fugue Mill weaves jazz through the fabric of Americana, world, and classical music, creating a complex yet attractive blend of musical and improvisational styles. Original group pieces are featured side by side with music by such composers as Leonard Cohen and Samuel Barber. Violin and mandolin augment the trio of piano, guitar, and bass, creating a transparent and vibrant palette of improvisation and counterpoint.

Fall Fiddle Festival Workshops

Saturday, October 22, 9:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Register at www.ccmusicschool.org or 603-228-1196

Space is limited & pre-registration is required

Fiddle players of various levels and styles (recommended for teens and up) are welcome to participate in a range of workshop offerings, taught by fiddlers Pascal Gemme, Quebecois fiddle, Mariel Vandersteel, Scandinavian and Old-Time fiddle, and Liz Faiella, Irish fiddle. Fiddle players of all levels and styles are welcome to participate in a wide range of workshop offerings. Workshops will be offered for beginner, intermediate, and advanced players during each workshop session. Beginner workshops are geared towards musicians who have a basic knowledge of their instrument.

Fall Fiddle Festival Concert

Saturday, October 22, 7:30 p.m.

Tickets $15/adults, $12/students & seniors, available at www.ccmusicschool.org or 603-228-1196

Featuring Pascal Gemme, Mariel Vandersteel, and Liz Faiella on the fiddle, the Fiddle Festival’s evening concert will journey through several fiddling traditions, from the music of our Quebecois neighbors, to Scandinavian melodies, to hypnotic Old-Time tunes, to airs from the Celtic shores.

More information and tickets are available at 603-228-1196 or www.ccmusicschool.org.

About the Artists

Mark Shilansky and his group Fugue Mill weave jazz through the fabric of Bluegrass, Celtic, and Classical music, creating a complex yet attractive blend of musical styles and traditions. Original group pieces are featured side by side with music by such composers as Thelonious Monk, Leonard Cohen, and Samuel Barber. Violin and mandolin augment the lineup, creating a transparent and vibrant palette of improvisation and counterpoint. Members of the group combine their wide-ranging experience playing with such artists as Luciana Souza, Esperanza Spalding, Stevie Wonder, and Darol Anger into a musical melange that explores diverse idioms, linked through improvisation and groove.

Mark 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 a BA in piano performance at the University of NH, and an MM in Jazz Studies at New England Conservatory, where he is now pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, while maintaining his busy performance schedule with a number of jazz artists, as well as teaching Ear Training, Arranging, and Ensembles at Berklee College of Music.

Juno and ADISQ nominee, Canadian Folk Music Awards laureate many times over, Pascal 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. During the course of a show, Pascal will guide you 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 to us through the generations and it is this strong link with his roots, coupled with his infectious joie de vivre that have made Pascal a crowd pleaser internationally.

Mariel Vandersteel is a musician, educator, graphic designer and visual artist currently living in Boston, Massachusetts. Since graduating from Berklee College of Music, Mariel has established herself as a folk musician of multiple styles, recorded her first solo album, Hickory, lived in Norway while studying the hardingfele, toured Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India, Bangladesh and has performed across North America multiple times while touring with Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards. Her interest in world culture and hand crafted folk art along with obsessing over the process of watching Hickory's artwork come to life, has led to an interest in graphic design and she has worked with several New England area musicians on CD design, posters and other promotional material. Mariel 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. Mariel is either currently teaching violin lessons privately and at the Club Passim School of Music, performing locally, hugging dogs or finding something creative to explore.

An Irish fiddler with New England contradance flair and classical sensitivities, Liz Faiella has captivated audiences at premier folk venues, contradances, and festivals around New England. Along with her brother, guitarist Dan Faiella, Liz 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. She has received music and dance scholarships from the New England Folk Festival Association and the Country Dance and Song Society, and has shared the stage with celebrated New England folk musicians including David Surette, Randy Miller, Dudley and Jacqueline Laufman, Matt and Shannon Heaton, and Grammy winner Dan Zanes. In 2015, she was selected by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts to conduct fieldwork on the history of contradancing in New Hampshire. Liz teaches fiddle lessons and coaches folk ensembles at the Concord Community Music School in Concord, NH. 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. Liz has led workshops for the Strathspey and Reel Society of NH, Maine Fiddle Camp, and Acadia School of Traditional Music & Arts.

About the Concord Community Music School

Concord Community Music School is a full member of the National Guild for Community Arts Education and is recognized nationally for program innovation and management excellence. Welcoming adults, teens, and children of all musical abilities, 50 artist teachers reach more than 33,000 people in four states with educational programs, concerts, workshops, and community partnerships. CCMS has received major funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Hearst Foundation, New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, Jane’s Trust, and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. The Music School is the 2005 recipient of the NH Governor’s Arts Award for Cultural Access Leadership.

# # #