MARCH MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS
Premiere Performance: The Oxford Drive Band
Friday, March 22, 2024 at 07:30 PM – 09:30 PM Price: $25
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Celebrate the new-to-Cape band, The Oxford Drive Band’s premiere Cultural Center performance. The Oxford Drive Band is an eastern Massachusetts group who combine the best elements of indie rock and alternative. A new band in the Cape area with their unique sound comes from a blend of experienced players of different backgrounds. Moody and introspective, yet also uplifting and danceable, the band shows diverse influences from folk, blues, rock, country, indie rock and ambient music.
“From atmospheric instrumentation, compelling and poetic expression throughout and the stunning vocals that are filled with soul, The Oxford Drive Band takes us on a journey we happily surrender to.” — FVMusicBlog
Rod Abernethy, Kim Moberg, Susan Cattaneo in The Round
Saturday, March 23, 2024 at 07:30 PM Price: $25
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Join Rod Abernethy, Kim Moberg, and Susan Cattaneo for a night of incredible music.
Rod Abernethy is an authentic southern folk troubadour, master acoustic guitarist, and award-winning songwriter and composer for film, TV, and video games. Rod’s awards include the Overall Grand Prize Winner of the 2021 International Acoustic Music Awards and the 2019 Grand Prize winner of the American Songwriter’s Bob Dylan Song Contest. His album Normal Isn’t Normal Anymore received rave reviews from No Depression, American Highways, and The Wall Street Journal and was in the Top 20 CDs of 2021 at No. 11 on the Folk International Folk Charts.
Kim Moberg, award-winning singer/songwriter, was born in Juneau, Alaska, the daughter of an Alaskan Native Tlingit mother and a military veteran father from Kansas. Music was a constant in Kim’s childhood. A classical pianist, Kim’s mother guided her love for a wide range of musical genres from folk to jazz, while her father is a Country music fan. Kim’s sound reflects this mélange of her musical upbringing. At 14, Kim began playing guitar on a borrowed acoustic. Later, Kim taught herself to play her favorite songs, but debilitating stage fright kept her from her dream of becoming a performer. In 2014 Kim set out to overcome her stage fright and wrote her first song. Kim teamed with Grammy-nominated producer Jon Evans (Tori Amos) to record “Above Ground” and “Up Around The Bend”, each charting on the Folk Alliance International DJ and North American College & Community Radio charts. Kim and Jon collaborated again for her third album, “The Seven Fires Prophecy: Suite for Humanity” (2023), an 8-song suite that ties the ancient Anishinaabe prophecy to our current social environment. The project blossomed from Kim’s desire to share what she learned about Indigenous teachings and the important and relevant life lessons they offer. Kim’s rich vocals, described as “a blend of honey and whiskey,” gently guides listeners through her musical stories while her compositions tug at feelings of melancholy, heartbreak, healing, and social consciousness.
Susan Cattaneo is one of Boston’s most respected singer-songwriters. Respectful of tradition, but not bound by it, Susan blends rock, folk, and blues with a healthy dose of country. Call it New England Americana with a twang. In 2018, she was nominated for Best Americana Artist at the Boston Music Awards, and she performed and won the Connecticut Folk Festival. Her album The Hammer and The Heart charted #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and yielded a #1 song on folk radio and a top 10 album of 2017. The album reflects her love for collaboration, featuring 40 local and national artists, including Mark Erelli, The Bottle Rockets, Bill Kirchen, Jennifer Kimball, Dennis Brennan, and Jenee Halstead, just to name a few. She was an Emerging Artist at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and a finalist or winner at some of the country’s most prestigious songwriting and music contests including Kerrville’s New Folk Contest (2018 and 2015), the Philadelphia Songwriters Project, the Wildflower Festival Songwriters Contest, the International Acoustic Music Awards, the Independent Music Awards, the 5 Unsigned Only Song Contest, the USA Songwriting Competition, the Mountain Stage New Song Contest and the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest. Susan has also been teaching songwriting at the Berklee College of Music for over 15 years and has performed all over New England with Western Mass trio The Boxcar Lilies. She currently tours in the Indie pop duo Honest Mechanik, who received Best Folk Album nomination from the 2021 Boston Music Awards.
Celtic/Americana with Duo Rakish
Friday, March 29, 2024 at 07:30 PM Price: $25
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Violinist Maura Shawn Scanlin and guitarist Conor Hearn unite to form “Rakish.”
The pair gets their namesake from the traditional Irish tune Rakish Paddy, an origin that aptly suits the duo and their shared background in traditional Irish and Scottish music.
Yet “rakish” itself also suggests something strikingly unconventional in its appearance, and Maura and Conor knowingly embrace this wealth of connotation in their music, drawing on the music they grew up with and performing it with their own slant.
Rakish explores tunes and songs from Irish and American folk traditions in a way that reflects their shared interest in and love for old traditional tunes, chamber music and improvisation.
Maura Shawn, a two-time U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion and a winner of the Glenfiddich Fiddle Competition, wields the technical range of a classical violinist and the deep sensitivity of a traditional musician.
Conor, a native to the Irish music communities of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD, makes his home in Boston, MA, playing and teaching guitar. As a duo, they have performed at venues and festivals across North America and can be found teaching at fiddle camps across the country.
Come enjoy a night of music as we celebrate Rakish’s first Cultural Center performance.