The Goodtime Stringband

The Seventh Annual March Mandolin Festival will be held March 6-8, 2009, at the Concord Community Music School in Concord, New Hampshire. This year, the festival features Radim Zenkl, Seth Austen, Skip Gorman, and David Surette. This two-day event offers group lessons, and workshops on a variety of topics, jam sessions, and an evening concert. Additionally, the festival will present a March 6, Friday night concert featuring the same performers at The Press Room in Portsmouth, NH (this is a separate ticket from the Concord events).

To register for the festival, send a check for $110 made out to:

Concord Community Music School
23 Wall St., Concord, NH 03301

Lodging is available at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Concord, New Hampshire, with a special festival rate. A limited number of rooms have been set aside, so if you are interested, please contact the hotel directly at 603-225-0303.

For more information, contact 207-384-8151, 603-228-1196 (Music School)

Sponsors include the NH State Council on the Arts Traditional Arts Program, www.MandolinCafe.com, and the Concord Courtyard Marriott Hotel.

PERFORMER BIOS

Radim Zenkl’s virtuosity and innovation have placed him at the forefront of the modern acoustic music scene. Radim was born in the Czech Republic, where his father teaches classical music at the University of Ostrava. In addition to classical music, his early influences were folk music and Czech unique “tramp music”. He began playing the mandolin at thirteen. Zenkl’s choice of mandolin came as no great joy to his father, who claimed that the instrument had no “real” repertoire, fueling his desire to create one of his own.

Zenkl escaped from Czechoslovakia four months before the fall of communism for political freedom and to be closer to his musical influences. Once in America, he settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. After only a short period of time, Zenkl was performing at major music festivals and sharing the stage with artists such as Jerry Garcia/David Grisman, Tuck & Patti, Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, David Grisman Quintet, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Tim O’Brien, Peter Rowan, John McCutcheon, Dan Hicks and many others. Zenkl went on to record two CDs for David Grisman’s record label “Acoustic Disc”. “Galactic Mandolin” (1992) is comprised of 13 original solo works, each in a different tuning. “Czech It Out” (1994) features original and Czech and Slovak traditional tunes on solo mandolin, mandocello and mandolin banjo. A new CD entitled “Restless Joy” was released in November 1999.

Seth Austen is a nationally recognized acoustic multi-instrumentalist, composing, playing, recording and teaching diverse styles from traditional Appalachian, Celtic and New England contradance music to eastern European Klezmer, Balkan, Nordic, bottleneck blues and jazz. Seth has been particularly involved in many American roots styles for 25 years and plays a wide array of stringed instruments, including the entire mandolin family. He has released several CDs and book/CD packages, and performs frequently with hammer dulcimer specialist and fellow multi-instrumentalist Beverly Woods. He also has the distinction of being a triple winner at the prestigious Walnut Valley National Flatpicking Championships, Winfield, KS, placing in fingerstyle guitar, mandolin and fretted dulcimer categories in 1981.

Skip Gorman is one of the leading teachers and players of Bill Monroe-style mandolin in the country, as well as being a masterful cowboy singer and fine fiddler. An encounter with Monroe at age twelve was a pivotal moment in the young musician’s life, and he was lucky to have the opportunity to see musicians like Monroe, legendary Texas fiddler Eck Robertson, and Mother Maybelle Carter at the historic Newport Folk Festival. He has taught bluegrass mandolin at top festivals such as IBMA World of Bluegrass, European World of Bluegrass and Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival. He has released a number of fine recordings, including three acclaimed Rounder releases focusing on cowboy music, and two focused on “old-style” bluegrass mandolin. His most recent release is a two-CD set of mandolin tunes titled Mandolin in the Cowcamp.

David Surette is highly regarded throughout New England and beyond for his work on the mandolin, guitar (both flatpick and fingerstyle), and bouzouki; Sing Out Magazine wrote that “Surette’s playing is always inventive, and sets a new standard for traditional instrumentalists.” As part of a duo with his wife, singer Susie Burke, they have performed regularly together for 20 years, recording several albums and building a reputation as one of New England’s top folk duos. Surette was a founding member of the Airdance band with fiddler Rodney Miller, with whom he recorded four albums and toured nationally. His most recent solo release, The Green Mandolin, is a collection of Celtic tunes for mandolin and cittern. He is also an experienced teacher, and coordinates folk music programming and teaches regularly at the Concord Community Music School.

The band had a great time this past weekend performing at the Sherman’s Halloween party. What a great group of family and friends! Passing the pumpkin to Clinch Mountain Backstep was awesome!

Goodtime Spencer has confirmed that Rhode Island is his second favorite state (next to Massachusetts). Nicki Singleton and Ryan Spraker of the original Hard Times band completed the group and great bluegrass sounds were made!  What is it about the calzone in Rhode Island? I think it may be the best I’ve ever had!

The band had the pleasure of performing on Saturday night at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. Yodelin’ Alan Kaufman and Suz Slezak (of the David Wax Museum) did a wonderful job of singing and playing twin fiddles! Waltzes were played, yodels were yodeled and hot chocolate cookies were eaten - it was a goodtime indeed!

Original Goodtime Charlie member Mike Kenney did a tremendous job on bass (as always).  It was certainly a blast to perform with him again!

Just wanted to share this amazing article from ABC News:

Eddie Adcock’s fast picking and unconventional style made him world famous as a bluegrass banjo innovator. But when tremors took over his once dexterous hands, he lost the ability to play the music he loved.

Now, thanks to an incredible brain surgery, during which Adcock was awake and playing the banjo until the doctors got it just right, he can turn his talent back on, literally at the push of a button.

Click here to watch the video.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Surgery Retunes Legendary Banjo Player