Sparky and Rhonda Rucker

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For the Ten Pound Fiddle’s 50th Anniversary season, Sparky and Rhonda are the perfect act to highlight the roots of folk music. It has been too long since this duo has graced the Fiddle stage; the Fiddle is delighted that they can be part of this year’s schedule.

Sparky and Rhonda Rucker deliver uplifting presentations of toe-tapping songs spiced with humor, history, and tall tales. Their music includes a variety of old-time blues, Appalachian music, slave songs, and spirituals as well as originals, and they accompany themselves with fingerstyle picking and bottleneck blues guitar, old-time banjo, blues harmonica, piano, spoons, and bones.

Reggie Harris, Peace Education Center’s Alternative Holiday Sale

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Co-Production with Peace Education Center’s Annual Alternative Holiday Sale. A veteran song leader at the Ten Pound Fiddle’s annual Mid-Winter Singing Festival, Reggie Harris has devoted his life to teaching, singing and sharing the songs of freedom and acceptance. HIs solo concerts are filled with haunting melodies, poignant stories, and familiar songs where everyone can join in.

“Reggie Harris is part of the solution. His marvelous music, his hard-earned wisdom, and his loving presence lift up any room he enters. Reggie reaches across all boundaries and makes strangers into friends. Give yourself and your community the gift of a transformative visit with Reggie Harris. ,Rabbi Jonathan Kligler, Teacher, Leader, Musician, Lev Shalem Institute, Woodstock, NY

*SOLD OUT* Holly Near, Women in the Arts Festival

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Co-produced with the Women in the Arts Festival. Activist, collaborator, singer, songwriter, song leader, artist, and teacher, Holly Near continues to wear many hats. Well known to Ten Pound Fiddle and Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival fans, Holly’s stop at Greater Lansing’s Women in the Arts Festival is a sort of homecoming – the home of Goldenrod Music, the current music distributor of Holly’s music and that of countless other womyn artists, and home to a cultural festival which has celebrated women artists for almost 40 years. This year Holly will provide an evening of a cappella song and storytelling.

Tom Paxton and the DonJuans

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“Last Thing On My MInd,” “Marvelous Toy,” “Rambling Boy,” “Whose Garden Is This?,” “Home To Me (Is Anywhere You Are), “Peace Will Come,” “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound,” “Bottle of Wine,” are only a fraction of Tom Paxton’s countless additions to the Great American Songbook. Traveling with Tom are the DonJuans, providing musical back-up and a few great songs of their own.

Postponed: Katie Dahl and Kitty Donohoe: Twin Bill

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New Date: October 14, 2022. “Katie Dahl’s songs aren’t just melodies and words, they’re journeys that are firmly grounded in a sense of place—beautiful, real landscapes that help you feel places that you may have never been before. That’s the very best kind of songwriting. – Dar Williams  ‘Kitty is making a name for herself in Irish America and you can see why from the high quality of the work here.‘ Irish Music Magazine.

Windborne

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Co-produced with the Peace Education Center in conjunction with it’s Alternative Holiday sale. Internationally acclaimed vocal group Windborne is known for the power and innovation of their arrangements, as well as their unrivaled mastery of polyphonic music from around the world. Currently Windborne is touring a project called Song on the Times, songs of social struggle from movements over the past 400 years.

Natalia Zukerman’s musical presentation of “The Women Who Rode Away” wsg Kate Peterson

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“…this is simply one of the most compelling and riveting events we have ever hosted on The Extended Play Sessions. It speaks of empowerment, struggle, tolerance, perseverance and history and the timeliness of this project could not be more poignant. A woman, seated alone on a stage, paying tribute to women…with beauty, style, grace and a boatload of talent!”
– Bill Hurley – Producer, The Extended Play Sessions

Crys Matthews

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Presenting songs of our times, “Crys Matthews is a necessary voice. Her depth coupled with her openness and approachability is unmatched. She has a spark that is contagious and shares music that unites us and makes us think.” Viviana Benitez, Associate Producer at Lincoln Center and 2017 NewSong judge