The Real Sarahs & Alex De Grassi with Julian Julian

Name: The Real Sarahs & Alex De Grassi with Julian Julian
Start: 2024-07-14T18:00:00-07:00
Location: Todd Grove Park

Schedule

Sun Jul 14 2024 at 06:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

Todd Grove Park | Ukiah, CA

[The Real Sarahs]
As rising stars in the west coast Americana scene, The Real Sarahs have distinguished themselves as skillful harmony singers and evocative songwriters. With an organic sound that enchants and uplifts the spirit, they share their special gift of vocal synergy. This ensemble creates magic with voices in harmony, acoustic instruments, and the energetic connection between artists and audience. Embracing many genres of music, you are likely to hear threads of folk, jazz, blues, bluegrass, and country running through their songs. Singing from the stories of their own journeys and life experiences, their original music is honest, captivating and heartfelt.
Introduced by a mutual friend in 2010, Sarah ‘Songbird’ Larkin and Sarah Ryan have been nearly inseparable, musically, since. Their recorded works are diverse and represent the broad musical influences and potential that this duo embodies. The 2017 release Afternoon With the Dirty Birds has the support of full instrumentation and showcases their songs with a big, 'full band' sound. Their 2018 release Headed For The Hills sinks back to their roots as acoustic musicians. This album was recorded in one day, on one microphone, and captures the authentic, raw power of their sound.
With gratitude for the gift of music given them, The Real Sarahs offer back their gifts with open hearts and truth of purpose. These women seek to inspire, uplift and entertain their audiences with songs that speak to the heart of the human experience. With the onset of regional and international touring in 2018, you can expect their voices to ripple out, touching more hearts and minds and carrying their message and influence to an ever broadening field of music lovers. With warmth and humor The Real Sarahs offer their REAL selves to the world as the women of song that they were born to be.
[Alex De Grassi]
Alex de Grassi has been a unique voice in the world of acoustic guitar for the past 42 years; his innovative approach to composing and arranging for solo steel-string guitar has influenced a generation of younger players. From his first solo performances in university coffeehouses and as a street musician to his engagements at prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Montreux Jazz Festival, Alex has followed his own vision and helped lay the foundation for contemporary fingerstyle guitar. Inspired by American and British Isles folk and blues artists in his early teens, Alex’s musical pursuits soon expanded to encompass classical, jazz, and world music. He has since become known for his evocative compositions and arrangements, and for his sheer virtuosity. Using a broad palette of techniques and timbre in conjunction with his ability to weave together melody, counter-melody, bass, harmony, and rhythm into a highly orchestrated canvas of sound, Alex’s performances take the listener well beyond the instrument. The Wall Street Journal has called his playing “flawless” and Billboard hails his “intricate finger-picking technique with an uncanny gift for melodic invention.”
Alex’s career has drawn acclaim for numerous studio recordings as well as for live performances as a soloist and within ensemble settings. His 1978 recording, Turning: Turning Back (cited by Acoustic Guitar magazine among their top ten essential fingerstyle recordings), the subsequent recordings Slow Circle (1979) and Southern Exposure (1984), and his GRAMMY® nominated recording The Water Garden (1998) are considered classics of the genre. In 2006, he collaborated with Quartet San Francisco leader and violinist Jeremy Cohen to premiere an original concerto for steel-string guitar, string quartet, and string orchestra, commissioned and published by String Letter Publishing for their 20th anniversary celebration at Herbst Theater in San Francisco. He has twice been commissioned by the New York Guitar Festival to compose and perform live scores for the festival's Silent Films/Live Guitars series. Festival director David Spelman says “Alex de Grassi is a treasure… his technical wizardry as well as his vibrant and poetic music-making make him one of the most distinctive steel-string guitarists performing today.”
His latest solo studio recording, the Bridge (released in April 2020), features six new original compositions plus arrangements of Gershwin (It Ain’t Necessarily So), Hendrix (Angel), and a pair of classic folksongs (Shenandoah, Sí Bheag Sí Mhór). Pop Matters says “The Bridge provides further evidence of his compositional prowess and his ability to fuse the heady world of virtuosity with deep emotions. His inimitable voice remains intact and as awe inspiring as ever.” His first solo guitar recording in 17 years since his Now and Then: Folk Songs for the 21st Century (Tropo Records/33rd Street 2003), The Bridge was recorded by multi- GRAMMY® award winner and TEC Hall of Fame engineer Leslie Ann Jones at the legendary Skywalker Sound studio in Northern California. “I had played on a live audiophile broadcast at Skywalker the year before” Alex explains, “and after taking my guitar out of the case and playing a couple of notes in that space, I knew I wanted to make my next solo recording there. It’s a truly amazing sounding room, and with Leslie Ann on the other side of the glass, I knew we would capture the sound of the best concert halls I’ve ever performed in. I wasn’t disappointed!”
[Julian Julian]
Julian Julian (Julian McClanahan) is an Artist, Gold Record songwriter and Violinist from the forests of Mendocino County, CA. Julian moved to Los Angeles to study at the USC Thornton School of Music. Julian blends voice, violin, and guitar with homemade beats for songs that soothe and celebrate the insanity of everyday life.