The Grand River Folk Arts Society presents
Acoustic Saturday Nights
held in the Wealthy Theatre Annex.
The address is 1110 Wealthy SE just west of Fuller Avenue. Concerts start at 8:00 pm unless otherwise marked.
Ticket Prices: $12 General, $10 Seniors & Students with student ID's two admissions for $10, $9 Members, $3 2-12 year olds.
For other information, please call (616) 246-6468 or (616) 361-9219.
 

March 13        Woods Tea Company - from Vermont, and they're Irish, too!

Wood's Tea Company performs bluegrass, Celtic tunes, sea chanties, and folk songs with an equal ease and skill. In concert, the Vermont-based group draws on a wide variety of musical experience and expression. They employ as many as a dozen different instruments from banjos, bouzoukis and bodhrans, guitars and tin whistles. The Vermont based group tours the country offering a mixture of lively folk, Celtic music, sea shanties, bluegrass, and dry New England humor. The award winning band has been featured at Lincoln Center, The Chautauqua Institute, and on National Public Radio. Because of their busy schedule, they've been labeled "Vermont's hardest working folk group" by both the Burlington Free Press and Vermont Public Radio. Order hot tea and hotter music at http://woodstea.net/.

March 20        Mike Agranoff - Funny Stuff,serious too

If you've been around the folk scene, you couldn't miss seeing Mike. Tall, red beard, and always around where the music is. He's been on the scene for many many years, listening to the fine details of what makes this genre of music so special to the soul, so able to make us laugh and cry and think. And lucky for us all, he got serious about having fun at it. Equally at home in the contemporary and traditional camps of the Folk world, he is a fine musician and storyteller. His prime instrument is the guitar, upon which he shines with intricate fingerstyle arrangements of anything from Tin Pan Alley tunes of the '20s to fiddle tunes to his own music. He also plays concertina, piano, banjo, or sings a cappella. He can be uproariously funny, contempletive, and powerfully emotional in the space of a few minutes. The man will capture your attention, and then your heart. Not only a performer, Mike is involved in presenting folk music as well. He is one of the prime movers of The Folk Project, New Jersey's oldest and strongest folk music organization. For over two decades he has been chairman of that organization's Minstrel Coffeehouse, one of the longest lived and most respected folk venues in the country. Follow Mike: http://www.mikeagranoff.com/index2.htm

March 27        Bill Staines - an All Time GRFAS Favorite

We love Bill Staines with his tuneful, fresh melodies carrying stories and emotions that you've never heard but still find familiar. Bill's musical genius sometimes hides the fact that he is a very keen and sympathetic observer of the human condition. Please join Bill and the rest of us in a celebration of music, beauty and life. P.S. Bill picks great guitar and sings like an angel! Keep up with his travels at http://www.acousticmusic.com/staines/

April 17        L'esprit Creole

L'esprit Creole, led by Dennis Stoughmatt, presents the Creole French traditions still alive in "Upper Louisiana," northern Louisiana, Missouri and Illinois. Dennis will share a centuries old French Creole fiddling style from fiddlers Roy Boyer and Charlie Pashia, fluency in Illinois-Missouri Creole French, and a wealth of stories and songs from story tellers and singers like Rose Pratte, Annie Pashia, Kent Beaulne, and Eli Robart; all of which have been handed down generation to generation in Missouri and Illinois for nearly 300 years. On the web: www.creolefiddle.com/

April 24        GRFAS Fundraiser with Conklin Ceili Band

Our favorite West Michigan Irishers, the Conklin Ceili Band, invite you to raise the roof and some $$$ for the Grand River Folk Arts Society. Here's the story:
Tom Verlin came up to me and said, "Mick, you know how guys go to the woods during deer season, and spend five days together hunting, talking and playing cards?"        "Yeah", sez I.         "How would you like to do that, except with music?" sez he.         "I'm in", sez I. That's how it all started. We got together in an old cabin in the woods on the weekend after New Year's in 1996 to make music. We have been together ever since.
That first weekend there was Tom Verlin on Mandolin and guitar, Jon Koeze on guitar, Jim Goldsmith on guitar and fiddle, and myself on 12 string guitar. A few weeks later Mike Scott joined us on banjo and vocals. Our world hasn't been the same since. We have become a band, even more importantly, we have bonded in a way that speaks of friendship, family, and the love of music. We have had a great time and we have faced adversity, including the loss of one of our own. But the music lives on.
Jim Goldsmith, one of our founding members, left us unexpectedly in March of 2001. This band would never have come together as it did without him. Originally the CD had a different concept, but with Jim's passing we knew it would have more to do with legacy for his family than anything else. We asked his daughter Michelle (Shelley to us) to step in and help us complete the CD in her fathers place. Shelley plays the same instruments as Jim and, bless her heart, she agreed to do it. Shelley and Rick have 4 kids under the age of 7 at home, so this was a major commitment on her part. The CD would not have been possible without them.

Subject to change