Join us for a special 'Hometown Holidays' concert featuring, Rich Follett, Ben Townsend, and Dakota Karper.
$25
Food will be available in the café.
Singer/songwriter Rich Follett performs easy-on-the-ears acoustic folk music. His song list includes familiar tunes from the 1920’s to the present as well as his original compositions, which offer insightful lyrics and inviting melodies you will want to hear over and over again. Rich is a public school teacher whose program is punctuated with interesting anecdotes and true stories from his classroom experiences. One of Rich’s CDs received the following review from Amazon.com: “Rich Follett's melodies are not only soothing to listen to, his lyrics speak right to your heart with feelings only he seems to be able to put to words. His voice is like velvet, and people just want to stop and hear it.”
Born and raised in Romney, West Virginia, multi instrumentalist, Ben Townsend has studied Appalachian traditional music extensively. With banjo mentors such as Riley Baugus and Ron Mullennex, and Fiddle mentors the likes of Dave Bing, Joe Herrmann, John Harrod and Earl White, Townsend has studied a variety of old-time traditions ranging from the archaic, haunting fiddle of his home to the Round Peak music of North Carolina and Virginia to the Bluegrass of East Kentucky and Ohio.
As a member of The Fox Hunt, Old Sledge, The Iron Leg Boys, The Hackensaw Boys, the Hillbilly Gypsies and now as a solo artist, Ben Townsend has traveled across the country and around the world spreading his unique take on West Virginia regional old-time music. He has shared the stage with acts varying from Ralph Stanley to the Henry Girls of County Donegal, Ireland to the Taiko drummers of Yamagata Prefecture, Japan and the rowdy Aussies at the Yarra Junction Fiddler’s Convention in Victoria, Australia
He is also a devoted teacher of the music of his region and works both privately and as a featured teacher at music festivals and camps. He has been involved in the Augusta Heritage Festival in Elkins, West Virginia as a coordinator, staff musician and teacher and has also worked as an instructor at The Allegheny Echoes Festival in Marlinton, West Virginia, Common Ground on the Hill at McDaniel College in Maryland and The Upper Potomac Fiddle Festival in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia just to name a few.
Currently Ben is curating a Patreon site which recently culminated in the release: The King of Ramps, The Music of Melvin Wine and is working on experimental electronic folk music incorporating synthesis control, found sound and video to create immersive installation pieces.
Dakota Karper was born and raised in rural West Virginia where she grew up surrounded by Appalachian Old-time music. From a young age she took to this music with great abandon. Absorbing as much as possible, she apprenticed under master fiddler Joe Herrmann, spent weeks at Augusta Heritage Center, participated in various music festivals in and around West Virginia and studied classical violin at the Shenandoah Arts Academy in Winchester, VA. After 7 years in Baltimore, MD, Dakota moved back to establish her home base in Capon Bridge, WV where she now teaches Appalachian fiddle and banjo and performs regularly in the surrounding region. Influenced heavily by a culture that values its roots and heritage, Dakota has created a voice of her own that combines clear haunting melodies, driving bow strokes, and settled rhythmic grooves. Dakota was a founding member of the 'Short Mountain String Band', and "Hay Fever" and has most recently been performing in the band 'Hemlock & Hickory'. In 2019 Dakota opened her own traditional roots music school called 'The Cat and The Fiddle' where she passes on these traditions.
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