Fans of all kinds of stringed instruments have a real treat in store this weekend, when Concord Community Music School brings back its annual March Mandolin Festival.
The 16th annual festival is set for Friday through Sunday (March 2-4), with two days of workshops at Concord Community Music School and two concerts featuring world-class musicians from California and New England. (Note: The workshops are all filled up now – sorry!)
As part of the festival, everyone can enjoy two fantastic concerts with a lineup of musicians whose mastery showcases the range and expressive qualities of the mandolin. The concerts will take place on Friday at the Stone Church in Newmarket and on Saturday at Concord Community Music School. The concerts will feature a broad range of styles including bluegrass, Celtic, classical, New England, folk and blues.
These performances will feature renowned mandolin player Marla Fibish on mandolin, mandola, tenor guitar, and button accordion; Will Patton of Vermont on mandolin and bass; Maine-based Matt Shipman on mandolin and guitar; and Concord Community Music School Folk Department chairman and multi-instrumentalist David Surette; plus special guests “polystylist” Bruce Victor and folk singer/ guitarist Susie Burke.
If you’ve never heard of Fibish, allow us to enlighten you: The San Francisco native has become one of the prominent voices of the mandolin in Irish music, bringing a musicality to the tradition that is not often heard on the instrument. Her dynamic playing is featured on the 2017 Noctambule release A Sweetish Tune, the 2010 recording with the band Three Mile Stone, and The Morning Star, a duo CD with Jimmy Crowley released in 2011, an all-instrumental project that features Irish music on an array of mandolin-family instruments: mandolin, mandola, mandocello, bouzouki and dordan.
In addition to the mandolin (and mandola, tenor guitar and button accordion), she sings and writes music and is known for her musical settings of works from a variety of poets.
In other words, she’s pretty good.
Patton has been playing music since the age of 6, starting on piano and taking up guitar at age 12. Mandolin and bass soon followed, and he’s been leading bands since he was 13.
Shipman, who lives in Portland, Maine, is a performer and teacher of acoustic and traditional music. Although guitar and mandolin were his first loves, he also plays bouzouki and clawhammer banjo.
Surette is highly regarded throughout New England and beyond for his work on the mandolin, guitar and bouzouki. As part of a duo with Burke, his wife and special guest, they have performed regularly together for many years (30 years in 2018!), recording several albums and building a reputation as one of New England’s top folk duos.
You can catch them all the music school this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students and seniors.
For tickets or more information, call the music school at 228-1196 or go to ccmusicschool.org.
Insider staff
