Cultural identity is always as enmeshed into artistic expression as your eyes are into your head. Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman will be bringing theirs to the Ark in Ann Arbor on June 29, which they both described as being deeply rooted in old timey, Southern Appalachian, folksy Americana.
“I consider myself an old time fiddle player,” Coleman said. “At the same time, we’re both influenced by a lot of other traditions. We both have a deep love for traditional Irish music and listen to things that is outside of folk music.”
Jumping off from their base as part of the folk scene in Brooklyn, the pair will make Ann Arbor the second stop on their tour around the Great Lakes, Quebec, and the Northeast from June to July before heading out to further gigs in northern and central Europe.
Brown and Coleman met at a folk music performance at St. Anne’s Church in Brooklyn. Once Coleman was wowed by Brown’s banjo playing abilities, they became friends. Since then, they have produced an EP – Lady of the Lake – and appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk last October.
Listening to their music, you definitely get Coleman and Brown’s old school American fiddle and guitar folksiness from the get-go. But what is really impressive about the pair is their glove-fit perfect compatibility, complimenting and reinforcing the quality of their music to a level of maturity and a level of practice-makes-perfect performance that you’d expect from a pair of musician’s decades older than they both are.
“I think that because we’re both steeped so much in fiddle music … even when we listen to other genres, I’m constantly looking for similarities or things that remind me of traditional music. It is something that my ear is aways looking for,” Brown said. “That can be found in any genre of music from lyrical arrangements, to melody arrangements, to lyrics.”
Tickets for Ann Arbor’s show go for $20 per person. The show will finish off the last Saturday night of June for the Ark, starting at 8 pm.
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
