KSER radio and Puget’s Sound Productions start their 2008 community concert series at a new venue with two folk/maritime acts, Tania Opland and Mike Freeman, and William Pint &Felicia Dale.
The duos perform tonight at Wired &Unplugged Coffeehouse in Snohomish.
In other area music, four solo guitarists perform on International Guitar Night Saturday night in Bothell.
Expect variety with the two coffeehouse acts.
Opland and Freeman will bring some combination of the hammered dulcimer, guitar, violin, cittern, chang, gidjak, doira, Native American flute, djembe, dholak, darabouka, percussion and maybe a surprise or two when they perform traditional, contemporary and original material.
Opland’s favorite instrument is the one that she’s working with on new material.
“Right now, I’m exploring the hammered dulcimer possibility. Most people see it as a fairly limited instrument, but I’m having a great time now seeing how far I can stretch the limits,” she said.
Opland also has played a blond violin since age 9, although recently she’s been playing a German violin converted from four strings to five, giving it the viola range as well as violin.
Why the fascination with so many instruments?
“I’m half inclined to put it down to a short attention span,” Opland said. “But I figured out a long time ago that I’m a collector … (not) of ‘stuff’ but of new types of music and different kinds of instruments. I see it, I want it; I hear it, I want it!
“It comes out of the experience I’ve had of sharing music with people in other cultures. We often don’t share verbal language, or at least not very well, but we’re able to sit and experiment with instruments and see how tunes from different cultures come out on instruments that I was playing.
“That’s an ability to communicate beyond language.”
Opland’s and Freeman’s songs can be in many languages and rhythmic roots from Siberia to Morocco to the U.S. and Canada. They live in Suquamish but have a home in Ireland, too.
Freeman has played with Middle Eastern and African dance troupes, arranged and produced CDs. He mainly plays the Gambian djembe.
William Pint and Felicia Dale perform contemporary, traditional and original maritime music in the traditions of the British Isles and France.
International Guitar Night: Once a year, an International Guitar Night performance offers a chance to combine genres and world-class guitarists to celebrate the poetry of life and the emotion of the moment.
Finger-style steel-string guitarist Brian Gore’s dream to attract the best musicians and break down musical and cultural barriers has held true since 1995. His touring show covers folk, jazz, world and classical.
He’ll be joined by Madagascar’s guitar wizard D’Gary, Clive Carroll from England, and Miguel de la Bastide, originally from Trinidad but now a Canadian resident.
Ernest Randriana (aka D’Gary) has drawn praise for his open-tuned style of Madagascan music (in an open tuning, the strings are tuned so that a chord is played when strummed, without pressing any strings).
His tunings can make his guitar, in some situations, sound closer to the lokanga, that country’s traditional violin. A combination of expressiveness and precision, D’Gary carries on musical traditions while using modern techniques.
In 2004, Carroll was included in Total Guitar Magazine’s list of the top 10 acoustic guitarists of all time. Acoustic Guitar Magazine called him “the best and most original young acoustic guitar player and composer in Britain.”
De la Bastide has a 25-year track record with flamenco. The award-winning guitarist can be explosive with lightning-fast runs or sensitive with a minimal touch.
Gore has said that his stage personality and humor give meaning to the term “extroverted introvert.” He can be technically flashy with his percussive techniques but doesn’t pound the romance and poetry out of the composition.
Tania Opland and Mike Freeman perform tonight in Snohomish.
Guitarists take the stage Saturday in Bothell.
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