The Woods Hole Folk Music Society will present traditionally inspired music from the Appalachians and Ontario, Canada, featuring the April Verch Band on Sunday, January 15. Doors open at 7 PM for the 7:30 concert at Community Hall, 68 Water Street.
Ms. Verch, a fiddler, singer and stepdancer, hails from the Ottawa Valley in Ontario. She grew up surrounded by the music of her father’s country band as well as the lively music at church and at community dances, and thought every girl learned to stepdance at the age of 3 and fiddle at age 6. By the time Ms. Verch graduated from high school, she had released two solo recordings and won both the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle and Open Fiddle Championships.
She attended Berklee College of Music in Boston before embarking on a professional career. “Verchuosity,” her first Rounder Records release in 2000, earned rave reviews and a Juno Award nomination.
Ms. Verch began her full-time touring career in 2000, playing at festivals and theater stages across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and presenting workshops, master classes and lectures in addition to performances. In 2010 she was one of six Canadian fiddlers chosen to participate in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Joining Ms. Verch January 15 will be Cody Walters on upright electric bass and banjo and Alex Rubin on guitar and mandolin. Mr. Walters grew up in Kansas and took up the bass while attending college at the University of Kansas in 1999. He has since performed in numerous bands, playing everything from bluegrass to old-time tunes, jazz to Latin music, along with folk and country. More recently, Mr. Walters has added clawhammer banjo to his roster of talents, developing a style that brings melodic complexity to the low end of the sound spectrum. Mr. Walters lives in Horse Shoe, North Carolina, and has been a member of the April Verch Band since 2007.
Alex Rubin is a Boston-based guitarist and educator who turned his musical interests from classical violin to bluegrass guitar at age 17. After completing a biology degree at Cornell University, he returned to the vibrant Boston music bluegrass scene, studying with the legendary flatpicker John McGann. Since 2014 his duo, No Bones About It, has performed throughout the Northeast and toured New Zealand. Mr. Rubin joined the April Verch Band in March 2016.
Doors open at 7 PM for the 7:30 concert. Admission is $20, with discounts for members, seniors, youth and children. Refreshments are served at intermission and donations of baked goods are always welcome. Woods Hole Community Hall is handicapped-accessible and street parking is free.