This Weekend: Fiddlers! 20

Above: The Gibson Brothers, the 2013 International Bluegrass Music Award Association entertainers of the year, are playing in Roxbury at Fiddlers! 20 this weekend. Photo via the Roxbury Arts Group.

For twenty years, the Roxbury Arts Group has been inviting anyone with an instrument to play with famous fiddlers at its day-long fiddling festival, Fiddlers!

The name says it all, really -- this Saturday, big fiddling acts like the Gibson Brothers will play, Catskills legend Hilt Kelly will call a square dance, food will be served, and the day will end with an open-invitation all-star fiddling jam. 

Fiddlers! is one of RAG's most popular events, and it's a must-see Catskills folk experience. 

Fiddlers! 20. Saturday, October 13, noon to 7pm. Roxbury Arts Center, 5025 Vega Mountain Road, Roxbury. Tickets are $24 on the day of; $19 in advance; and $17 for seniors and students. Tickets available online by clicking here. 607.326.7908. roxburyartsgroup.org.

Read the full press release below:

The Roxbury Arts Group presents FIDDLERS! 20 2013

International Bluegrass Music Association Multi-Award winners – The Gibson Brothers!

Mason Dixon Line, Tremperskill Boys, Sara Milonovich and Greg Anderson And Special Guest Hilt Kelly

Sunday, October 13, 2013 • Noon to 7pm Roxbury Arts Center, 5025 Vega Mountain Road, Roxbury, NY 12474, 607.326.7908

FIDDLERS! is back and in its 20th year! A full-day fiddling festival returns to the Roxbury Arts Center on Sunday, October 13th. The fun begins at noon with square-dancing and culminates with an All-Star Jam.

Headlining FIDDLERS! 20 this year is the 2013 International Bluegrass Music Award Association (IBMA) multi-award winners, The Gibson Brothers. Sweeping the 2013 IBMA, The Gibson Brothers took home ‘Entertainers of the Year’, ‘Vocal Group of the Year’, ‘Song of the Year’ (“They Called It Music”) and ‘Songwriter of the Year’ (Eric Gibson).

With all of their success and accolades, the Gibson Brothers trace their roots to a small, upstate New York farming town. From there the Gibson Brothers have made a name for themselves in bluegrass over the past two decades, playing over 80 shows and festivals a year and gradually building a deeply dedicated, nationwide fan base with their spellbinding harmony singing, which can reach the high lonesome notes of Bill and Charlie Monroe and capture the tenderness of pop/country crooners like the Everly Brothers.

At FIDDLERS! 20 the Gibson brothers, Eric and Leigh, will be joined by their full band, often referred to as"…Gibson Brothers who don’t share the Gibson name." This includes fiddle player Clayton Campbell who has been playing fiddle, along with the mandolin and guitar, since he was 7 years old. A native of the Bluegrass State and the Gibson Brothers’ gifted fiddler since 2004, Campbell plays impeccable old-time country and bluegrass. His honed intonation, vibrato, double stops, and experience since childhood have made him a link in the chain of the Gibson Brother’s many grooves. With Clayton on board, the band shifted from recording and touring quartet with varying fiddlers on albums to self-contained five-piece bluegrass band on the road and in the studio. Both fiery and cool, he is the consummate sideman.

That’s not all! Joining the Gibson Brothers at FIDDLERS! 20 are also Mason Dixon Line, The Tremperskill Boys, Sara Milonovich & Greg Anderson, and special guest Hilt Kelly. Mason Dixon Line is Larry Sliker, Marc Meccia and Jim Kopp. They met over 35 years ago and have been playing together ever since. Mason Dixon Line was a New Jersey working country rock band until Sliker joined and from that point forward, Southern Rock, Bluegrass, country and blues were forever meshed. Sliker plays the fiddle, banjo, mandolin and guitar, Meccia is on guitar and mandolin and Stamford local, Kopp is on bass and vocals. A testament to special guest Hilt Kelly, Sliker learned the fiddle as a young boy from Kelly’s grandfather, who taught Larry the old fiddle and banjo standards.

"The Tremperskill Boys are an old time string band whose core repertoire comes from fiddle tunes now native to the Catskill Mountains. One hundred years ago and more, the Irish and Scottish farmers and laborers of the Catskill Mountains produced a distinctive style of fiddling. Their sound could be described as hard driving northern Appalachian music. This is the music now interpreted by the Tremperskill Boys. Their sound is zestful, hard driving, foot tapping and energetic, making sitting difficult and square and contra dancers happy. The lead fiddler and the group’s founder, John Jacobson, a born and raised Delaware County musician, has plenty of energy and enormous love of the Catskill Mountains to share with the band and any audience. Joining Jacobson will be Amy Lieberman on bass, Earl Pardini on fiddle, Chris Carey on banjo, Ira MacIntosh on guitar, Carol Mandigo on guitar, John Potocnik on fiddle, and yes, Ginny Scheer is playing the flute!

Frontwoman/founder of indie roots-rock band, Daisycutter, Sara Milonovich is a successful singer, fiddler, composer, and bandleader in her own right, while at the same time a sought-after accompanist for a number of other artists in many musical genres. She has performed throughout the US and Europe in Americana roots, folk-rock, bluegrass, Celtic, and Appalachian music, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with artists such as Richard Shindell, Pete Seeger (on his Grammy-winning album “At 89”), The McKrells, Cathie Ryan, Eliza Gilkyson, Anne Hills, and Antje Duvekot, among others. In 2011, as part of the group Mountain Quickstep, Sara toured Kosovo, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Turkey as part of The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad, presented by the US Department of State and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Sara has also composed music for VoiceTheatre’s 2012 production of Lovers and 2013 production of Birds on a Wire.

Growing up on a working farm in rural upstate New York, Milonovich began playing fiddle when she was four, and by nine was leading her own band (around the same time she learned to drive a tractor.) She joined the Adirondack Fiddlers at age seven, and had the opportunity to learn firsthand a variety of fiddle tunes and styles common in NY from older generations of fiddlers (most notably special guest Hilt Kelly!), who grew up playing local dances at grange halls and lumber camps. At age twelve she released her first cassette of traditional fiddle tunes, Traditionally, Sara. In June 2001, Sara traveled to Mt. Airy, North Carolina, with John Kirk and Trish Miller, where she competed in both the Bluegrass Fiddle and Folk Song contests, placing first and second, respectively. Her latest CD, 'Daisycutter', released in 2009, was a nominated Grammy semifinalist, as was her debut CD, 'Miss Ippy Fiddle', released in 1998. Her first CD with guitarist and producer Greg Anderson, 'Forward In All Directions!', made the Top Ten World Music list in the Village Voice ‘Pazz & Jop’ Critic’s Poll of 2004. She currently tours with her roots-rock band, Daisycutter, with whom she is finishing up production of a new CD to be released late 2013.

Greg Anderson is a multi-instrumentalist who co-founded the acclaimed Celtic-fusion group Whirligig. Currently the guitarist with The Eileen Ivers Band, he has also performed and recorded with many diverse international artists, including Susan McKeown, The Klezmatics, Cathie Ryan, and Doctor Nerve, among others. Also a much sought after producer and arranger, he is a recognized expert at the blending of traditional and world musics with contemporary sounds and production values, and has produced albums for many of these same artists, along with dozens of others.

Roxbury Arts Group executive director, Jenny Rosenzweig said, “We are very happy we were able to bring back FIDDLERS! for its 20th year. It wasn’t an easy task, with having to rebuild from the destruction of Hurricane Irene and funding cuts, but we felt it essential for us to maintain this tradition for both the Roxbury Arts Group and for our communities.” FIDDLERS! 20 promises to be a great day with food and refreshments available, square dancing and great music, culminating in an all-star jam! Audience members are encouraged to bring their instruments and join the bands in the jam, which has grown into over the years, the highlight of the FIDDLERS! Advance Tickets for FIDDLERS! 20 are $19 for adults and $17 for seniors and students. All tickets purchased the day of the event are $24. For tickets and more information please call the Roxbury Arts Group at 607.326.7908 or visit their website at www.roxburyartsgroup.org.

The programs of the Roxbury Arts Group are made possible in part by the support of the New York State Council on the Arts, the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O’Connor Foundation, the Robinson Broadhurst Foundation, 2013 Season Sponsors Jan Andersen Fine Art Services and WIOX Community Radio 91.3 FM, and by the generous donations for individual community members like you.

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