Italian Night Concert

Name: Italian Night Concert
Start: 2024-12-15T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Porter Center At Brevard College

Schedule

Sun Dec 15 2024 at 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Porter Center At Brevard College | Brevard, NC

ITALIAN NIGHT CONCERT
featuring Mike Guggino and Barrett Smith w/ special guest Lauren Mascitti
Sunday, December 15th, 2024 / Porter Center - Brevard, NC
Mike Guggino and Barrett Smith have been performing traditional Italian folk music on the mandolin and guitar for over two decades. The duo first met in college, while both were studying jazz and classical music but also getting their feet wet in bluegrass and American folk music. They are both members of the Grammy Award winning band Steep Canyon Rangers. They have hosted "Italian Night" performances at local restaurants, house concerts, and music venues. These widely popular events have provided them the perfect setting to develop their own unique musical expression of these exotic, Italian folk songs. They released their first album, Mia Dolce Farfalla, in 2020.
Many fans discovered Nashville-based singer-songwriter, Lauren Mascitti, during her appearance on the 2020 season of American Idol, but Lauren has been performing and writing songs since the age of 7. By the time she was a teen, Lauren was performing six shows a week in Branson, MO with gospel singer and original Oak Ridge Boy, Gary McSpadden. After earning a degree in nursing, she moved from her hometown of Louisville, OH to Nashville where she has co- written and performed with artists such as Pam Tillis, Matraca Berg, Suzy Bogguss, Mo Pitney, and Bobby Tomberlin. She performed with Brad Paisley and Shania Twain in a concert honoring her fellow healthcare workers during the pandemic and has performed on the Grand Ole Opry multiple times. Lauren's most recent album "God Made a Woman" was named to the New York Times and Saving Country Music's Best of 2020 lists and went to #4 on iTunes in country albums sales.
Like Mike and Barrett, Lauren has a passion for Italian popular and folk music traditions. She grew up listening to the famous Italian-American "crooners", but especially female artists like Connie Francis. She began singing at Italian festivals while growing up in Ohio and eventually met and befriended Deana Martin (Dean Martin's daughter) while performing in Branson. When Deana found out Lauren was from Ohio (not far from where here father Dean was born and raised), she invited her to become a regular performer. Throughout her many years of singing there, Lauren also became acquainted with many Italian-American television and movie actors from New York who either came as Grand Marshals of the Italian festival parades or just came to pay their respects as fans of Dean Martin. When these actors started their own Italian festival in Tappan, NY (The Blauvalt Sons of Italy Italian Feast), they asked Lauren to be an annual performer, which she has done for the last 15 years.