Jake Blount w/ John and Ida Mae Specker
Sat Feb 8, 2025 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Chandler Center for the Arts, 05060
Description
Chandler Center for the Arts presents Jake Blount, award-winning interpreter of Black folk music based in Providence, Rhode Island, to kick off its 2025 season on Saturday, February 8. Join Blount for an Artist’s Talk at 5 p.m., followed by a Community Potluck Mixer at 6 p.m. The concert opens at 7 p.m. with The Speckers – fiddlers and vocalists John and his daughter Ida Mae based in Andover, Vermont – followed by headliner Blount.
Merging centuries-old traditional songs with modern Black genres, Blount’s recent releases by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings include symbiont, a collaborative album and document of Black and Indigenous futurism with Mali Obomsawin; and The New Faith, named one of the best roots albums by Rolling Stone, NPR, The Guardian and more. Initially recognized for his skill as a string band musician – winner of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize and two first-place ribbons from Clifftop – Blount’s still-young career has “charted an unprecedented, Afrofuturist course” that “disintegrates the boundaries between acoustic and electric, artist and medium, and ancestor and progeny.”
His performances are frequently paired with an educational session where he shares insight from his original research and the history of Black string band music. Currently a PhD student in Musicology & Ethnomusicology at Brown University, his undergraduate thesis while studying at Hamilton College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania was titled “Fiddles in the North Country: Uncovering the Ithaca Sound.” Paired perfectly with Blount, February 8 show opener John Specker is known as the “father of the Ithaca Sound.”
Specker has dedicated his fifty-year thus far career to the art of playing old-time traditional American fiddle music. Audiences delight at his athletic performances characterized by simultaneous triple stops, foot tapping, and singing. His daughter – fiddle player and vocalist Ida Mae Specker – performs her original music as a solo performer and with a full band; is a member of family bands Terrible Mountain String Band and The Speckers; and is a member of folk-punk trio The Break Maids. She was recently named Vermont’s Rising Star in the 2024 New England Music Awards.
www.jakeblount.com www.idamaespecker.com www.johnspecker.com
“Pay what you can” pricing for the concert is between $10 and $40, encouraging audience members to support the artists and the Chandler based on their individual financial ability. Artist’s Talk and Mixer are free and open to the public.
February 8 is also the opening day of Crossroads: Change in Rural America, the traveling exhibition examining the evolving landscape of rural America presented by the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street in cooperation with Vermont Humanities Council. The exhibit will be on view in the Chandler Gallery from 12 to 8 p.m., so concert goers are encouraged to come early to explore small town life, both past and present.
Alongside the touring exhibit, the Chandler Gallery has curated a group of local artists fitting along the theme of rural America at a crossroads, including Woody Jackson, Carolyn Egeli, Steve DePalma and ten others. The is free and open to the public Tuesdays through Saturdays, 12 to 5 p.m. through March 22. A gallery opening, and walk through of the local artist show will be held at 4 p.m. on February 8.
About the Chandler Center for the Arts
One of the most acoustically impressive music halls in the entire Northeast is at Chandler in Randolph, VT. Through both performing arts onstage and ambitious art exhibits in its large gallery, Chandler’s mission is to strengthen and energize our community. It’s home to incredible events featuring world-renowned artists, like the famous annual New World Festival. Chandler also strives to deepen the cultural and artistic growth of local youth, to offer opportunities for people to come together in celebration of the arts, to inspire and cultivate artistic expression and education in the performing and visual arts for people of all ages and incomes. Learn more at chandler-arts.org
Location
Chandler Center for the Arts, 05060