The 8th Annual Maritime Performance Series at the Calvert Marine Museum begins on Friday, September 15 and continues through spring, 2018. This series promises an eclectic mix of traditional music ranging from sweet harmonies to foot stomping jigs. Performances begin at 7 p.m. in the Harms Gallery. Doors open at 6 p.m. with beer and wine for sale. Ticket prices vary per show and can be bought in advance, online, at www.bit.ly//MaritimeConcerts or at the door (cash or check only). The series is sponsored in part by Holiday Inn Solomons.
Friday, September 15 – CREOLE GUMBO JAZZ BAND
The Creole Gumbo Jazz Band was founded in 2009 by Jim Ritter, a cornetist with a long history of playing early New Orleans jazz. Other members of the band include Gary Gregg, who uses an Albert-system clarinet, Tom Holtz is on tuba, and Rick Rowe on banjo. Their music is alternately gentle and brash, inventive, and intuitive with musicians playing off of one another. Each concert is replete with tidbits of jazz history about how this music developed in New Orleans between 1900 and 1929. The tunes are mostly from the Roaring Twenties when jazz was America’s popular music. Tickets are $15 online, $20 at the door.
Friday, October 13 – HARPETH RISING
Three classically trained musicians playing original music, as intricately arranged as a string quartet, lyrically rooted in the singer/songwriter tradition, and wrapped in three-part vocal harmonies reminiscent of both Appalachia and Medieval Europe. Building from the tonal depth of the cello, the trio layers in the shimmering sounds of a violin and the strikingly natural addition of banjo to create a sound at once familiar and impossible to categorize. Unapologetic genre-benders, Harpeth Rising fuses folk, newgrass, rock and classical into something organically unique. Tickets are $20 online, $25 at the door.
Saturday, October 21 – BARRULE
Presented in partnership with The Celtic Society of Southern Maryland. Named after the famous Manx summit where legend says the ancient Celtic God Manannan MacLir stalked his mighty fortress, Barrule fuses three distinct musical forces: gifted fiddle-player Tomas Callister, accordion wizard Jamie Smith, and versatile accompanist Adam Rhodes on bouzouki. Together this talented acoustic unit creates a powerful and wholly distinctive sound. Tickets are $25 at the door, as available. Visit https://cssm.ticketleap.com to purchase tickets in advance (some discounts apply).
Friday, November 10 – SIMPLE GIFTS
Two women plus twelve instruments equals one heck of a good time. Combining tradition with innovation, Simple Gifts creates some of the finest arrangements in folk music today: swing fiddle creeps into a Romanian dance, spoons show up in an Irish reel, and a blues lick introduces a Klezmer melody. Based in the hills of central Pennsylvania, these women play an amazing array of instruments, switching with ease among fiddle, mandolin, banjo, guitar, guitjo, recorders, bowed psaltery, hammered dulcimer, baritone fiddle, guitar, and percussion. Tickets are $15 online, $20 at the door.
The Maritime Performance Series will continue in 2018 with dates announced in November.
