“Tracing Tennessee’s Musical Roots”:Baroque Fiddling Project II at the Loveless Barn – Monday, April 16, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.: Loveless Barn, 8400 Highway 100, Nashville – Music City Baroque offers a continuing exploration of popular classical and fiddle music and dance from the birth of our country to the pre-Civil War era. Works celebrate such historical figures as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, General Marquis de Lafayette, Davy Crockett, Andrew Jackson, and Ole Bull, as well as one of Nashville’s most celebrated composers of the early 19thcentury in the fiddling Mecca of the Loveless Barn.
DATE and TIME: Monday, April 16, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.
PLACE: Loveless Barn, 8400 Highway 100, Nashville, TN 37221
PROGRAM: Baroque Fiddling Project II: “Tracing Tennessee’s Musical Roots”
PERFORMERS:
Will Griffin, narrator
Instrumentalists of Music City Baroque and eight period dancers
Tammy Rogers King, Laura Ross, Karen Clarke, Rebecca Cole, fiddles/violins
Chris Stenstrom, cello
Murray Somerville, harpsichord
Francis Perry, guitar and theorbo
Terri Richter, soprano
Bill Wiggins, drums
AnnaGee Harris, production
TICKETS: $15 in advance, available online at www.muscicitybaroque.org, and $18 at the door
INFORMATION: www.musiccitybaroque.org, 850-264-9293
Did you ever wonder what the difference is between a violin and a fiddle, or wonder how deep “roots music” actually goes? Then you need to join Music City Baroque as it journeys back in time with “Tracing Tennessee’s Music Roots” at the Loveless Barn on Monday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m. Building on its 2010 first foray into the relationship between fiddling and Baroque violin playing with the Baroque Fiddling Project I, the ensemble of fiddlers/violinists and other assorted instrumentalists will play music from the time of Jefferson, Franklin, and King George III to the popular tunes of the 1840s. Joining the ensemble will be eight dancers who will demonstrate popular reels, quicksteps, jigs and minuets set to fiddle tunes. Presiding over the show will be WPLN host Will Griffin, who will help narrate the story of the passage of fiddling from Colonial days through the brink of the Civil War.
The Baroque Fiddling Project, first presented in 2010, was recognized as “Best Classical-Folk Collision” in Nashville Scene Best of Nashville 2010. The Fiddling Project was also recognized with a four-page story in Early Music America (Winter 2011).
Background research and composition of “Tracing Tennessee’s Musical Roots” was undertaken by Music City Baroque members Laura Ross, violinist and a member of the Nashville Symphony, and Tammy Rogers King, fiddler/violinist, faculty member at Belmont University, and fiddler alongside such artists as Reba McEntire, Wynonna and Emmy Lou Harris. Offering advice and guidance was fiddling authority Dr. Dale Cockrell, director of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, one of the outstanding archives of popular music in the nation.
The Baroque Fiddling Project II: “Tracing Tennessee’s Musical Roots” is supported by a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission, and by Music City Baroque supporters.
Music City Baroque, now ending its eighth season, offers ensemble and chamber music of the 17thand 18thcenturies played on period instruments, in the style the composers would have expected, so that their music may be heard in all its original color and passion. Recognized by Nashville Scene in its Best of Nashville 2011 edition as “Best Early Music Group,” MCB’s performers are drawn from members of the Nashville Symphony and faculties of the schools of music at Vanderbilt, Belmont and MTSU.
“The musicians played throughout with grace, taste and unfailing sensitivity … Every note was played with sincere feeling.” -- ArtNowNashville