This month I’m exploring American folk music on different sides of the country. In San Francisco, we kick off Mercury Soul’s season at The Great Northern with a show integrating DJs and bluegrass-inspired folk music. A week later at the Kennedy Center, my KC Jukebox series opens with Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw’s Appalachia-informed string quartets and Scottish balladier King Creosote. Featuring totally different repertoire and concert formats – one in a club, the other a “tavern chamber music” – the shows both offer a window into the past and future of this longest of musical traditions.
I’ve always been fascinated by the raw energy and instrumental virtuosity of American roots music (blues, string band, bluegrass). The lightning-quick finger-picking of a mandolin legends David Grisman and Chris Thile, for example, often twang out of my kitchen speakers. The unique juxtaposition of virtuosity and vernacular is intriguing from both classical and electronica perspectives. As a symphonic composer, I’m drawn to the instrumental command; as a DJ, I appreciate the sheer sonic power of the plectrum textures of guitar, banjo, mandolin, and string bass.
With its combination of live instruments and thumping DJ sets, Mercury Soul is a great show to weave a line through the history of folk music. Jointly headlined by the amazing DJ Gavin Hardkiss and the blues band Hot Buttered Rum, the show also includes folk-inspired classical music from living composers John Adams and fiddler Mark O’Connor, as well as Dvorak and Brahms. The latter two composers often incorporated elements of Eastern European folk into their chamber music, so we included them to complement the modern folk perspective.
Other performers include the astonishing Matt Szemala, who plays as mean fiddle when not serving as concertmaster of the Berkeley Symphony; the string quartet Vitamin Em; and myself and DJ Justin Reed spinning roots and blues-influenced DJ sets. Brad Hogarth conducts this barn-burner of a show at The Great Northern.
The next week I return to my artistic home base at the Kennedy Center, where I am beginning the fourth year of my stint as composer-in-residence. This week I heard the superb Dover Quartet perform my From Amber Frozen on the Fortas Series, and it will great to hear them return this week on my series KC Jukebox, which offers new music in imaginative new formats. For this deep dive into the music of two fascinating living composers, we’re transforming the Kennedy Center’s atrium into a wood tavern (with a great bar!).
Caroline Shaw’s upbringing in Carolina is evident in much of her music. Her highly individual, quirky surface is animated by a soulful and bluesy undercurrent. We present several of her works for string quartet in addition to selections from her By and By, with Caroline joining the Dover as a vocalist. Looking at folk music from the other end of the spectrum, we bring in Scottish balladier King Creosote. He performs a solo set on guitar, with the Dover also joining him on several numbers. Hearing these two artists respond to the folk tradition from different fields, and indeed different countries, is one of the special things about KC Jukebox.
Very rarely can one hear classical and vernacular music on the same concert, but this kind of intersection can provide deep revelations. Whether on Mercury Soul or KC Jukebox, you can hear classical music ricocheting off divergent yet complementary musical styles.