BATHROOM SITUATION: Our hosts are refurbishing their first-floor bathroom with an estimated completion date of mid-July. Until those renovations are complete, the only available bathrooms will be up the main staircase which is equivalent to climbing two normal flights of stairs given the very high ceilings. There is no elevator in the building, so those who have difficulties with stairs may wish to take this into consideration.
The Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series™
Time: 7:30 PM unless otherwise noted. 2nd Fridays are usually Open Stage/audition night. (Check the schedule for rare exceptions.)
Location: Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 21 Normandy Heights Road, Morristown, NJ, a smoke & alcohol free environment. DIRECTIONS
Admission: Unless otherwise noted, $10 on your way in plus the balance of what you think the show was really worth on your way out. All exit donations go directly to the Headline Act. Vaccinated children 12 and under may attend free, but must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Until such time that children under 5 may be safely vaccinated, alas they will not be admitted.
Streaming: All Troubadour concerts may be viewed in person or live-streamed, except as noted.
For More Information: Email troubadour@folkproject.org or call 973-335-9489.
Buy Troubadour tickets online: You may purchase tickets in advance for Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series shows by clicking on the Live Tickets link in the show listing below. Online sales cease a bit before midnight on the day before the event. Tickets will still be available at the door on the day of the show unless the event is completely sold out, in which case there will be a prominent notice posted on this website. Some events accept admissions payment only at the door, with no advance sales.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Jean Scully was drawn to singing by her love of Irish song. She uses her clear soprano to good effect on beautiful music of all sorts. She draws upon the help of several talented singers and players from the Folk Project to accompany her. Jean is also the Troubadour’s Volunteer Chair, and we offer this opportunity to display the musical talents of our staff.
Trout Fishing in America, originally scheduled for July 22, has been rescheduled to this date.
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
An evening of instrumental virtuosity.
Muriel Anderson is a guitarist and harp-guitarist who embraces music from all over the world with grace, joy and gentle humor. She is the first woman to have won the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship. Her CD “Nightlight Daylight”, was chosen as one of the top 10 CDs of the decade by Guitar Player Magazine. Muriel’s facility across the genres of folk, classical, bluegrass, popular and international music is revered by guitarists worldwide. Among those she has performed or recorded with are Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Victor Wooten and Tommy Emmanuel.
Carol Walker may be local (Denville), but she’s renowned across the country to the Appalachian Dulcimer World. She has twice placed among the top 5 finalists at the prestigious Winfield Festival, and is in great demand as an instructor and workshop leader at dulcimer festivals. She plays all sorts of music, but specializes in traditional Scottish and Manx (Isle of Mann) tunes.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of masterful fingerstyle guitar.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
Flip Peters & Larry Maltz are a couple of real hot guitarists. They specialize in twin-guitar renditions of jazz standards and other familiar and unfamiliar songs. Really classy licks, tasty arrangements, and solid rhythm characterize their performance.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Our opener Fiona Tyndall grew up in County Clare Ireland. She spent her childhood summers at a residential school run by her parents to steep its students in Irish music, language, and culture. She sings with beautiful simplicity the songs she learned through this experience, and those that her love of this music led her to pick up later in life.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of helpless hilarity with two very funny acts.
Perhaps the very name of The Loose Canons will give you some insight to their approach to music. This 11-member choral group sings intricate vocal arrangements of folk songs, do wop, classical favorites as well as audience participatory pieces. But they specialize in parodies, satire, novelty songs, and other bits of musical tomfoolery.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: For those of you unfamiliar to Carla, this show will serve as a teaser for her upcoming Feature Set at the Troubadour coming up on December 30th.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
After two COVID-related postponements, neither of which was due to Carla herself being infected, we finally get to see Carla Ulbrich to close out the year.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Jean Scully was drawn to singing by her love of Irish song. She uses her clear soprano to good effect on beautiful music of all sorts. She draws upon the help of several talented singers and players from the Folk Project to accompany her. Jean is also the Troubadour’s Volunteer Chair, and we offer this opportunity to display the musical talents of our staff.
Trout Fishing in America, originally scheduled for July 22, has been rescheduled to this date.
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
An evening of instrumental virtuosity.
Muriel Anderson is a guitarist and harp-guitarist who embraces music from all over the world with grace, joy and gentle humor. She is the first woman to have won the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship. Her CD “Nightlight Daylight”, was chosen as one of the top 10 CDs of the decade by Guitar Player Magazine. Muriel’s facility across the genres of folk, classical, bluegrass, popular and international music is revered by guitarists worldwide. Among those she has performed or recorded with are Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Victor Wooten and Tommy Emmanuel.
Carol Walker may be local (Denville), but she’s renowned across the country to the Appalachian Dulcimer World. She has twice placed among the top 5 finalists at the prestigious Winfield Festival, and is in great demand as an instructor and workshop leader at dulcimer festivals. She plays all sorts of music, but specializes in traditional Scottish and Manx (Isle of Mann) tunes.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of masterful fingerstyle guitar.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
Flip Peters & Larry Maltz are a couple of real hot guitarists. They specialize in twin-guitar renditions of jazz standards and other familiar and unfamiliar songs. Really classy licks, tasty arrangements, and solid rhythm characterize their performance.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Our opener Fiona Tyndall grew up in County Clare Ireland. She spent her childhood summers at a residential school run by her parents to steep its students in Irish music, language, and culture. She sings with beautiful simplicity the songs she learned through this experience, and those that her love of this music led her to pick up later in life.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of helpless hilarity with two very funny acts.
Perhaps the very name of The Loose Canons will give you some insight to their approach to music. This 11-member choral group sings intricate vocal arrangements of folk songs, do wop, classical favorites as well as audience participatory pieces. But they specialize in parodies, satire, novelty songs, and other bits of musical tomfoolery.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: For those of you unfamiliar to Carla, this show will serve as a teaser for her upcoming Feature Set at the Troubadour coming up on December 30th.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
After two COVID-related postponements, neither of which was due to Carla herself being infected, we finally get to see Carla Ulbrich to close out the year.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Jean Scully was drawn to singing by her love of Irish song. She uses her clear soprano to good effect on beautiful music of all sorts. She draws upon the help of several talented singers and players from the Folk Project to accompany her. Jean is also the Troubadour’s Volunteer Chair, and we offer this opportunity to display the musical talents of our staff.
Trout Fishing in America, originally scheduled for July 22, has been rescheduled to this date.
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
An evening of instrumental virtuosity.
Muriel Anderson is a guitarist and harp-guitarist who embraces music from all over the world with grace, joy and gentle humor. She is the first woman to have won the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship. Her CD “Nightlight Daylight”, was chosen as one of the top 10 CDs of the decade by Guitar Player Magazine. Muriel’s facility across the genres of folk, classical, bluegrass, popular and international music is revered by guitarists worldwide. Among those she has performed or recorded with are Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Victor Wooten and Tommy Emmanuel.
Carol Walker may be local (Denville), but she’s renowned across the country to the Appalachian Dulcimer World. She has twice placed among the top 5 finalists at the prestigious Winfield Festival, and is in great demand as an instructor and workshop leader at dulcimer festivals. She plays all sorts of music, but specializes in traditional Scottish and Manx (Isle of Mann) tunes.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of masterful fingerstyle guitar.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
Flip Peters & Larry Maltz are a couple of real hot guitarists. They specialize in twin-guitar renditions of jazz standards and other familiar and unfamiliar songs. Really classy licks, tasty arrangements, and solid rhythm characterize their performance.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Our opener Fiona Tyndall grew up in County Clare Ireland. She spent her childhood summers at a residential school run by her parents to steep its students in Irish music, language, and culture. She sings with beautiful simplicity the songs she learned through this experience, and those that her love of this music led her to pick up later in life.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
Rupert Wates is a transplanted Englishman who writes, sings, and plays witty wordy and quirky songs on unlikely subjects. A writer who makes you think while he entertains.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of helpless hilarity with two very funny acts.
Perhaps the very name of The Loose Canons will give you some insight to their approach to music. This 11-member choral group sings intricate vocal arrangements of folk songs, do wop, classical favorites as well as audience participatory pieces. But they specialize in parodies, satire, novelty songs, and other bits of musical tomfoolery.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: For those of you unfamiliar to Carla, this show will serve as a teaser for her upcoming Feature Set at the Troubadour coming up on December 30th.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
After two COVID-related postponements, neither of which was due to Carla herself being infected, we finally get to see Carla Ulbrich to close out the year.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Jean Scully was drawn to singing by her love of Irish song. She uses her clear soprano to good effect on beautiful music of all sorts. She draws upon the help of several talented singers and players from the Folk Project to accompany her. Jean is also the Troubadour’s Volunteer Chair, and we offer this opportunity to display the musical talents of our staff.
Trout Fishing in America, originally scheduled for July 22, has been rescheduled to this date.
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
An evening of instrumental virtuosity.
Muriel Anderson is a guitarist and harp-guitarist who embraces music from all over the world with grace, joy and gentle humor. She is the first woman to have won the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship. Her CD “Nightlight Daylight”, was chosen as one of the top 10 CDs of the decade by Guitar Player Magazine. Muriel’s facility across the genres of folk, classical, bluegrass, popular and international music is revered by guitarists worldwide. Among those she has performed or recorded with are Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Victor Wooten and Tommy Emmanuel.
Carol Walker may be local (Denville), but she’s renowned across the country to the Appalachian Dulcimer World. She has twice placed among the top 5 finalists at the prestigious Winfield Festival, and is in great demand as an instructor and workshop leader at dulcimer festivals. She plays all sorts of music, but specializes in traditional Scottish and Manx (Isle of Mann) tunes.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of masterful fingerstyle guitar.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
Flip Peters & Larry Maltz are a couple of real hot guitarists. They specialize in twin-guitar renditions of jazz standards and other familiar and unfamiliar songs. Really classy licks, tasty arrangements, and solid rhythm characterize their performance.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Our opener Fiona Tyndall grew up in County Clare Ireland. She spent her childhood summers at a residential school run by her parents to steep its students in Irish music, language, and culture. She sings with beautiful simplicity the songs she learned through this experience, and those that her love of this music led her to pick up later in life.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
Rupert Wates is a transplanted Englishman who writes, sings, and plays witty wordy and quirky songs on unlikely subjects. A writer who makes you think while he entertains.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of helpless hilarity with two very funny acts.
Perhaps the very name of The Loose Canons will give you some insight to their approach to music. This 11-member choral group sings intricate vocal arrangements of folk songs, do wop, classical favorites as well as audience participatory pieces. But they specialize in parodies, satire, novelty songs, and other bits of musical tomfoolery.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: For those of you unfamiliar to Carla, this show will serve as a teaser for her upcoming Feature Set at the Troubadour coming up on December 30th.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
After two COVID-related postponements, neither of which was due to Carla herself being infected, we finally get to see Carla Ulbrich to close out the year.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Jean Scully was drawn to singing by her love of Irish song. She uses her clear soprano to good effect on beautiful music of all sorts. She draws upon the help of several talented singers and players from the Folk Project to accompany her. Jean is also the Troubadour’s Volunteer Chair, and we offer this opportunity to display the musical talents of our staff.
Trout Fishing in America, originally scheduled for July 22, has been rescheduled to this date.
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
An evening of instrumental virtuosity.
Muriel Anderson is a guitarist and harp-guitarist who embraces music from all over the world with grace, joy and gentle humor. She is the first woman to have won the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship. Her CD “Nightlight Daylight”, was chosen as one of the top 10 CDs of the decade by Guitar Player Magazine. Muriel’s facility across the genres of folk, classical, bluegrass, popular and international music is revered by guitarists worldwide. Among those she has performed or recorded with are Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Victor Wooten and Tommy Emmanuel.
Carol Walker may be local (Denville), but she’s renowned across the country to the Appalachian Dulcimer World. She has twice placed among the top 5 finalists at the prestigious Winfield Festival, and is in great demand as an instructor and workshop leader at dulcimer festivals. She plays all sorts of music, but specializes in traditional Scottish and Manx (Isle of Mann) tunes.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of masterful fingerstyle guitar.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
Flip Peters & Larry Maltz are a couple of real hot guitarists. They specialize in twin-guitar renditions of jazz standards and other familiar and unfamiliar songs. Really classy licks, tasty arrangements, and solid rhythm characterize their performance.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Our opener Fiona Tyndall grew up in County Clare Ireland. She spent her childhood summers at a residential school run by her parents to steep its students in Irish music, language, and culture. She sings with beautiful simplicity the songs she learned through this experience, and those that her love of this music led her to pick up later in life.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
Rupert Wates is a transplanted Englishman who writes, sings, and plays witty wordy and quirky songs on unlikely subjects. A writer who makes you think while he entertains.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
An evening of helpless hilarity with two very funny acts.
Perhaps the very name of The Loose Canons will give you some insight to their approach to music. This 11-member choral group sings intricate vocal arrangements of folk songs, do wop, classical favorites as well as audience participatory pieces. But they specialize in parodies, satire, novelty songs, and other bits of musical tomfoolery.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: For those of you unfamiliar to Carla, this show will serve as a teaser for her upcoming Feature Set at the Troubadour coming up on December 30th.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
After two COVID-related postponements, neither of which was due to Carla herself being infected, we finally get to see Carla Ulbrich to close out the year.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.