Call in your reservations for our May 4 show with Joyce Katzberg to 401-725-9272.

On the occasion of the centennial anniversary of Pete Seeger's birth, BRT presents Rhode Island's own topical songstress and cultural organizer, Joyce Katzberg in a celebration of the songs and social activism that made Seeger a permanent fixture in the history of folk music. As might be expected, there will be plenty of opportunity for audience participation. In the first set, performing 3 songs each, will be Partington & Sweeney, Jimmy Warren, and Bob Drouin. Joyce will then do a solo second set. Seeger and Katzberg first met in person in 1989 and went on to perform together several times in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New York. Katzberg is a co-founder of the former R.I. Labor and Ethnic Heritage Festival and Stone Soup Coffeehouse and credits Seeger as being the inspiration behind both. Mary Lee Partington has praised Joyce as "the First Lady of Rhode Island Folk" and goes on to describe her as having "a voice filled with her passion for social justice and her passion for life. With a vocal range as wide as it is deep, her singing style has a sultry substance – at times silky, at times smoky, always strong and vibrant. In a well-traveled career, she has sung beside Pete Seeger and an American grand choir of leading artists who have devoted their work to the cause of social justice, human rights, and our responsibility to care for one and all. If her voice has heart, it is because she has been at the heart of folk music in America while placing the truths she holds dear, in the spotlight." After more than a half a century on the professional stage, Katzberg plans to retire from performing in November, 2019. Partial concert proceeds will benefit Seeger's environmental organization, The Clearwater Fund. Please Note: Audience members are requested to be as fragrance-free as possible. 

*All ticket prices include a $1.00 per ticket restoration charge

Karan Casey has long been one of the most innovative, provocative and imitated voices in Irish traditional and folk music. Her career has spanned 25 years from the early days as a jazz performer in Dublin to her heady days in New York with the band Solas to her now established solo career and she has sold over half a million albums. Since Solas, Casey has carved out a unique place in contemporary Irish and folk music. She has recorded seven solo albums, has won Best Irish Female Vocalist twice, Best Irish Folk album and a Grammy for her collaboration with Paul Winter. Casey has also been nominated for the BBC Folk Awards and has performed with Peggy Seeger, Liam Clancy, James Taylor, and Tim O'Brien. The Boston Globe says, "Casey's voice is among the loveliest in folk music and she's a wonderful interpreter of both contemporary and traditional material.” "Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale" is the evocative title of the new album from Karan Casey, which sees her return to a mix of traditional and folk song imbued with a modern twist, sitting alongside some new self-penned songs. Casey has also recently spearheaded a campaign – #FairPlé (“Fair Play”) – to promote gender balance in the production, performance, promotion, and development of Irish traditional and folk music. Many performers – male as well as female, in Ireland and elsewhere, have strongly voiced their support for her endeavor to bring this important issue to the forefront. As for performing, for Karan, the criteria has always been, "Is it a good song? I'm always looking for stories that are sung well and delivered with meaning, and that’s what’s most important." Karan will be joined by Matt Heaton and Sheila Falls Keohane for tonight's concert.

Purchase tickets online or call in your reservations for our May 19 show with Darlingside to 401-725-9272.

Darlingside delivers a truly moving blend of subtlety, power, outstanding vocal quality and contemporary songwriting. The Boston-based quartet features four distinct voices clustered around a single microphone; their tightly-arranged tunes drawing from the unexpected, including strains of bluegrass, classical, and even barbershop. Accompanied by an arsenal of classical strings, guitars, mandolin, and percussion, these four close friends swap instruments from song to song and offer a sound that defies standard genre classifications. While the band's critically acclaimed 2015 release "Birds Say" was steeped in nostalgia and the conviction of youth, their new album “Extralife" grapples with dystopian realities and uncertain futures. Whether ambling down a sidewalk during the apocalypse or getting stuck in a video game for eternity, the band asks, sometimes cynically, sometimes playfully: what comes next? Hope arrives in the form of Darlingside's signature superpower harmonies, drawing frequent comparisons to late-60s era groups like Crosby, Stills & Nash, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Byrds. And yet, their penchant for science fiction and speculative futurism counteracts any urge to pigeonhole their aesthetic as “retro.” The four close friends construct every piece of their music collaboratively, pooling musical and lyrical ideas so that each song bears the imprint of four different writing voices. NPR Music dubs the result "exquisitely-arranged, literary-minded, baroque folk-pop" and calls Extralife "perfectly crafted.” With a sound nodding to the music of their parents’ generation, Darlingside has established a sound that is all their own.

*All ticket prices include a $1.00 per ticket restoration charge