Mid-Shore Life

featuring   Andrea Hoag and Charlie Pilzer Janine Smith, caller  

Saturday, January 23, 2010 ~ 7 pm    Christ Church Parish Hall 103 Willow Street / St. Michaels, MD    

Enjoy a memorable evening of live music and dancing with friends and family:  circles, squares, line dances and contras on Saturday, January 23 and again on February 27, 7-9:15 pm 

Award-winning musicians and recording artists Charlie Pilzer and Andrea Hoag will be providing the dance music, accompanied by one of the most popular dance callers in the mid-Atlantic region, Janine Smith.  Don’t miss out!   All ages are welcome.  No need to bring a partner.  Arrive anytime and stay as long as you like.  No experience necessary. A professional dance caller will lead the way.  Those who want to watch from the sidelines and enjoy the music are also welcome.  For experienced dancers, the last part of the evening (8:45-9:15) will feature more advanced dances.   

FOR LOCAL MUSICIANS (teens and adults) – there will be an open band session 7-7:30 pm (and again at the end of the dance) -- for anyone who plays an instrument and would enjoy the opportunity to play some tunes in an ensemble setting. (Arrive 6:30 for warm-up before dancing starts at 7pm). Visit www.CarpeDiemArts.org to download tunes and practice in advance.  Please encourage your musician friends to give it a try.  The tunes are great fun to learn and sound even better with a band!  

Admission to the dance is on a pay-what-you-can basis, less or more, to help pay the musicians’ fee and travel.  Any net proceeds will go to support arts programming in area schools and under-served communities.  Suggested donation: $7 adults, $3 students.  Refreshments provided.  

ABOUT MUSICIANS ANDREA HOAG AND CHARLIE PILZER Andrea Hoag's fiddle playing is passionate and lyrical, complex and evocative. Her bold flights of imagination are firmly grounded in many years of traditional playing. Andrea is one of North America's foremost performers of traditional Swedish music, and is a highly respected fiddler in several American, English, and Celtic styles. A noteworthy composer, improvisor and vocalist, Andrea is a musical matchmaker who treats her sources with both reverence and playfulness. “Call it a fiddle, call it a violin— in [her] hands it is simply a marvelous string instrument that fits into myriad traditions and fuels many cross-cultural fusions,” wrote Richard Harrington of The Washington Post in a review of Andrea’s solo/collaborative CD, Fire & Water.  

Charlie Pilzer has spent decades creating award-winning Scandinavian, Celtic, folk, and acoustic music and sharing his love of the traditions with audiences, listeners, and other musicians around the world.  Well known as a dance musician (piano and bass), Charlie began his involvement with Scandinavian music in 1978, when he met the Faroe Islands-based band Spælimenninir (“the folk musicians”) during their first U.S. tour. Reflecting the international group’s membership (Faroese, Danish, Swedish, and American), Spælimenninir’s repertoire is pan-Scandinavian, with a good helping of American contra dance music.  Charlie’s performing and touring with a pan-Scandinavian band made him ideally qualified to work with two of America’s finest performers of Scandinavian fiddle music, Andrea Hoag and Loretta Kelley, on a pair of highly acclaimed CDs of traditional and recently-composed Scandinavian tunes. Hambo in the Barn (1996) and Hambo in the Snow (2006) which was nominated for a 2007 GRAMMY Award as Best Traditional World Music Album.  In addition to mastering a dozen GRAMMY-nominated projects, Charlie received a GRAMMY for mastering and restoration on the Anthology of American Folk Music (1997).

After January 23, the next dance dates are fourth Saturdays -- February 27 and March 27. 

The Chesapeake Community Dances are sponsored by Carpe Diem Arts Productions, in partnership with St. Michaels Community Center and St. Michaels Studio,  and are made possible by the generosity of Christ Church in providing the dance hall.