Tag: banjo

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Floating Down the River with a Fiddle and a Banjo

Onoma River album cover showing an engraving of a Kingfisher surrounded by a gold halo and hovering over a rural landscape. Esther Morgan-Ellis and Holland Hopson's names are in cursive and blocky fonts.
Onoma River cover art, exceprt from John Klosterman’s print

Fiddler Esther Morgan-Ellis and I are celebrating the release of our new recording, Onoma River, with an online listening party on Thursday. Onoma River is a collection of new old-time tunes for fiddle and banjo that brings new blood to old-time music. Esther and I embrace the spirit of ‘crooked’ tunes with a set of newly composed music that builds on southern Appalachian traditions.

Thursday, November 13, 2025 7pm
Onoma River Listening Party
RSVP for a free, online listening party

I’ve been writing a banjo tune every week since 2011. A few of these tunes have wound up in other projects, but most have never been released. Working with Esther was a great opportunity to get more of this music out into the world.

To accompany the album we commissioned John Klosterman to create a beautiful, limited-edition, 12.5” x 18.5” art print. The hand-printed piece incorporates gold ink on Arnhem cotton rag paper and chine collé woodblock images on Japanese rice paper. We chose a section of the print to serve as the album artwork. More information about John’s work can be found at www.johnklosterman.com

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BAMA@30

The Birmingham Art Music Alliance (BAMA) is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. One part of the celebration is a series of virtual concerts. The first one dropped on Friday, October 10 and features music by Cynthia Miller, Shane Lamb and me.

YouTube player

Future virtual concerts will premiere every Friday afternoon. Over 100 composers have been active in BAMA during its 30 years of supporting new music in Alabama. So there’s a wide range of interesting pieces to come: chamber music, solo piano, improvisations, electronics, and more. Follow B’ham Art Music Alliance on YouTube to see them all.

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Handsome Molly in Pensacola

I’m premiering a new piece for banjo, voice and electronics tomorrow at the Pensacola ComposerFest XX. The piece is based on the traditional tune “Handsome Molly.” Other composers on the program include Michael Coleman,, Kadisha Onalbayeva, William Price and Robert Voisey.

Sunday, September 28, 2025 2:30pm
Pensacola ComposerFest XX
Pensacola State College
Ashmore Auditorium
Pensacola FL

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Iron Giant Free Association Record Release

Iron Giant Free Association is celebrating the release of their first record, Terry Riley’s In C with a free, in-store performance at Seasick Records on Thursday. I’m one of the special guests invited to join the group for the performance. Other guests include John Albea, Mika Carpenter, Jim Fahy, Justin Greene, Davis Little, Melissa Noble and more.

Thursday, September 4, 2025 6pm
Iron Giant Free Association plus special guests
Seasick Records
3131 5th Ave South
Birmingham AL
Record release party for Terry Riley’s In C

Seasick will host an album listening party for David Byrne’s Who Is The Sky? at 5pm on the same day. Byrne’s tune “The Avant Garde” makes a great intro to the event:

“There’s only one place, that’s the avant garde
I wanna go there
I wanna go there
I’ll take you with me
The things that we’ll see
Just look around and you will observe
It’s a passionate life, it’s ahead of the curve”

Come for Byrne; stay for Riley.

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Guitar Fest

The East Village Guitar Festival kicks off this weekend. The event will feature over 20 local and regional guitarists. On Friday I’ll be bringing my banjo/electric guitar hybrid to perform a set of improvisations similar to the pieces on my 2021 Tell A Gossip recording from Tape Drift Records. Also playing Friday will be Killick & Klimchak. Saturday’s event will feature Taylor Hollingsworth and Jupiter.

Friday and Saturday April 4-5 2025
East Village Guitar Festival
East Village Arts
7611 1st Ave N
Birmingham AL 35206

YouTube player

This event was originally scheduled for mid-March but had to be postponed due to weather. Read more at Bham Now and Birmingham365.