Fire & Grace & Ash

Name: Fire & Grace & Ash
Start: 2024-11-01T19:30:00-07:00
End: 2024-11-01T22:00:00-07:00
Location: UCSC Music Recital Hall

Schedule

Fri Nov 01 2024 at 07:30 pm to 10:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

UCSC Music Recital Hall | Santa Cruz, CA

Internationally acclaimed musical trio Fire & Grace & Ash — violinist Edwin Huizinga, guitarist William Coulter, and mandolinist Ashley Hoyer — will perform one night only at University of Santa Cruz's Music Center Recital Hall on Friday, November 1, joined by world-renowned singer and composer Moira Smiley. This family-friendly evening is a spectacular journey through folk music, Baroque compositions, favorites from Americana, and back again.
Tickets ($30; fees may apply) are available at https://bit.ly/3MTvXId; and will also be available at the door, subject to availability.
Artist sights and sounds:
fireandgracemusic.com/fire-grace-ash
Santa Cruz resident and Grammy Award winner William Coulter is an internationally recognized master of the steel-string guitar, and has been performing and recording traditional Celtic and American folk music for more than 30 years. Coulter studied classical guitar and earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), a master's degree in music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a second master's degree from UCSC in Ethnomusicology. He now teaches guitar at UCSC as well as the National Guitar Summer Workshop, Alasdair Fraser's Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School, and the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. For further information, visit http://williamcoulterguitar.com.

Fiddler and violinist Edwin Huizinga is a Canadian-born, world-travelled artist known for combining traditional and classical pieces with new sounds and ideas. He loves to compose and works with a vast number of artists in the worlds of rock and roll, ambient music, folk music, Baroque music, and opera. He received his Master's degree in violin performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; is on the Artistic Leadership team of the Carmel Bach Festival; is a founding member of ACRONYM, a world-renowned baroque ensemble; and has recently become the Artistic Director of the Sweetwater Music Festival. His latest commissions are for Opera Atelier and the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada. For more information, visit www.edwinhuizinga.com.

Ashley Hoyer, the “Ash” in Fire & Grace & Ash, is a Southern California-based composer-instrumentalist. Her myriad talents and musical accomplishments defy easy description or classification. Fluent on mandolin, violin, and cello, Hoyer crafts melodies, sonic textures, and haunting harmonies that distinguish her works. Described as a "mandolin phenomenon" by the San Diego Tribune and highly sought after by a wide range of musicians, Hoyer has performed in folk clubs, festivals, bars, dance halls, orchestras, and recording studios. With Edwin Huizinga and William Coulter, Fire & Grace & Ash fuse Bach with traditional and contemporary folk tunes. The trio premiered their "Partita Americana," a combination of Bach’s Violin Partita in E Major with a variety of American fiddle tunes, at the 2018 Carmel Bach Festival. For more information, visit http://ashleyhoyer.com.

The duo of Fire & Grace has been a unique partnership exploring the connective musical elements of classical, folk, and contemporary traditions from around the world. The Monterey County Weekly said of them, “With Huizinga’s viking stature and red hair whipping around, and Coulter grooving with zen-like calmness, they make an engaging pair.” After having worked with Hoyer — who, like Huizinga and Coulter, is classically trained — the two realized the potential in expanding their collaboration to create Fire & Grace & Ash. The mandolin and violin are similar in that all four strings of each are tuned to identical pitches; and with the level of proficiency among all three, entirely new melodic and harmonic possibilities emerged: like duet melodies and parallel harmonies between mandolin and violin, or the same between guitar and mandolin. The mandolin can also double as a chordal instrument, which frees up the violin and guitar to share melodic lines. Fire & Grace & Ash has played to appreciative audiences since 2021.

Acclaimed singer, composer and teacher Moira Smiley has sung in arenas, cathedrals, kitchens, back porches, sound stages, and on glaciers; has been featured in TED conferences, on BBC Radio and TV, NPR, ABC Australia, and live at countless venues from Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall to Walt Disney Concert Hall and Royal Festival Hall. She’s performed with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Tim O’Brien, Eric Whitacre, Los Angeles Master Chorale, New World Symphony, Solas, and The Lyris String Quartet. Smiley has toured the world performing; and recorded with Oakland-based, indie-pop favorite Tune-Yards: performing with them on all the late-night TV shows (Kimmel, Colbert, O’Brien, UK’s Jools Holland, etc.) as well as to re-open David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in NYC. For more information visit www.moirasmiley.com.