For decades, Frank Youngman has been the musical ringmaster of children’s music for Wheatland, Hiawatha and countless other music festivals. He recently retired from Lake City schools as their middle school and high school band director.
Seth Bernard is a pillar of Michigan’s Earthwork Music organization and is a leader in all things environmental, singing and organizing campaigns and events. A dad himself, Seth is very much at home engaging both young and old in musical fun.
Frank Youngman and Seth Bernard have known each other since 1983, when Seth was 3 years old and Frank and the Lost World String Band were putting out vinyl on Wheatland Records and playing dances in the barn at Earthwork Farm, Seth’s birthplace and home. Mentor and mentee, these two have been longtime pillars of the Michigan Music community, stewarding a culture of collaboration and cooperation among artists, and using the power of song to raise awareness. Having been marinated in the rich cultural offerings of the Ten Pound Fiddle for decades, with peak experiences and magical memories imbedded in their souls, Frank and Seth will bring a pile of instruments to the stage to serve up a mighty feast of music from the heart.
Click here to watch Frank and Seth’s set from Wheatland’s 2020 Virtual event.
Frank has been playing all types of music his whole life. A multi-instrumentalist, he has performed in places as diverse as The Improv Comedy Club in New York City to A Prairie Home Companion. A founding member of The Lost World Stringband, The Pets, and Jive at Five, he continues to keep a busy recording and performing schedule. He has just finished up his 35th year of teaching, the last seventeen years as the Director of Instrumental Music for the Lake City Area Schools. The Uke was his first instrument.
Born and raised on Earthwork Farm in rural Northern Michigan, Seth Bernard was brought up in the folk and farmstead culture with an enriching integrative experience of the arts, agriculture, and community. In 2001, Seth founded Earthwork Music, a renowned Michigan-based collective of successful independent musicians who focus their efforts on environmental advocacy, social justice, creative empowerment and community building.Seth has traveled the world and blanketed the US as a magnetic performer and uplifting cultural worker and is equally at home fronting a large electrified ensemble as he is holding a crowd with nothing but an acoustic guitar. Seth has served as the Director of the Musical Ambassador Program for On the Ground where he helped cultivate partnerships and cultural exchanges between communities in southern Mexico, Ethiopia and eastern Congo and communities in Michigan with a focus on solidarity and creative collaboration. “Eggs” Bernard is a NMEAC Environmentalist of the Year Award winner for Arts Education and has worked with SEEDS and On Stage for Kids bringing nature-based experiential creative empowerment to young people across the Great Lakes region and beyond.
“I know that the future of music is in good hands with people like Seth around to be its caretaker. More importantly, I know the future of our world is in good hands.”
-Greg Brown, Folk Legend
In early 2018, Bernard launched the Clean Water Campaign for Michigan, a social movement using storytelling and music to amplify the groundswell of support for water issues.
Seth is a prolific songwriter and recording artist with 12 solo albums and a dozen more collaborative projects in his catalogue. He’s won 8 Jammie awards as a recording artist and producer, and has been a longtime iconic leader and steward of Michigan’s music community. Learn more about Seth’s newest work, “My Heart is My Home” here.
“This music not only swings, rocks, and grooves–it matters. It’s the voice of a real community, with a sound and a message the world needs to hear.”
-Bill McKibben, Author, environmentalist, journalist
“The argument for the most influential human in the Michigan music uprising of the past decade may begin and end with one Seth Bernard.”
-Jack Clark, Red House Concerts