Berkeley Bluegrass Festival - Night 1 - Tray Wellington, Mr. Sun, Laurie Lewis and The Right Hands

Name: Berkeley Bluegrass Festival - Night 1 - Tray Wellington, Mr. Sun, Laurie Lewis and The Right Hands
Start: 2023-04-21T19:00:00-07:00
Location: Freight & Salvage

Schedule

Fri Apr 21 2023 at 07:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

Freight & Salvage | Berkeley, CA

For the seventh year, the Freight & Salvage celebrates incredible talent with the Berkeley Bluegrass Festival, April 21-April 23, 2023. With concerts programmed by Grammy-award winner Laurie Lewis and the Freight’s Artistic Director Peter Williams, plus instructional workshops curated by Ms. Lewis with Freight Education Associate Leah Wollenberg, Berkeley Bluegrass Festival brings together leaders of the genre, up-and-coming artists, and music fans for three days of concerts, jams, workshops (free for ticket holders!), and good old-fashioned merriment to kick off the summer music festival season.
MC’d by Allegra Thompson
Free workshops, jams and other activities will be offered throughout the weekend.
thefreight.org/bluegrass
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Growing up in western North Carolina’s Ashe County, Trajan “Tray” Wellington heard a lot of music — and from the first time he heard the banjo as a young teen, he was, he says, “hooked.” Within a few years, he had joined with a few friends to form Cane Mill Road, an acclaimed band of youngsters whose wide-ranging brand of bluegrass quickly found favor with an equally wide-ranging audience. By the end of 2019, the quartet had released three well-received albums, recorded with bluegrass and Americana star Jim Lauderdale, and performed at festivals across the country, including Grey Fox, Merlefest and the IBMA’s Wide Open Bluegrass, culminating in a 2019 IBMA Momentum Band of the Year award — and, for Tray, individual recognition as an IBMA Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year.
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Renowned fiddler Darol Anger, Professor Emeritus at Berklee College of Music, who has released dozens of influential solo albums over a 50-year career in addition to his work with David Grisman and Mike Marshall, and founded the Turtle Island Quartet, Psychograss, and Republic of Strings; Joe K. Walsh, mandolin virtuoso and vocalist who spent four years with the award-winning bluegrass act the Gibson Brothers before becoming a solo artist, songwriter, and Strings Department Professor at Berklee; all-around guitar genius Grant Gordy, a former member of David Grisman’s band and respected solo artist and educator; and the phenomenal Scots bassist Aidan O’Donnell, who has backed harpist Maeve Gilchrist and countless modern jazz heroes.
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For nearly four decades, California bluegrass fiddler Laurie Lewis has gathered fans and honors for her powerful, emotive voice and her versatile, dynamic songwriting. She is a sought-after producer and an equally skilled teacher and mentor. And she is an inspiration and a groundbreaker—across genres, across geography, and across gender barriers.
Lewis has shown us how a woman can blend into any part of the classic bluegrass singing trio, and she has shown us how a great voice could move fluidly between bluegrass and other genres. She has shown us how a female fiddler could emulate the strength and grit of the early bluegrass musicians. She has shown how a Californian can appeal to traditional bluegrass audiences and win acclaim in Americana and folk music.