WHERE: Next Stage at 15 Kimball Hill in downtown Putney, VT
WHEN: Sunday, March 25 at 7:00 pm
TICKETS: Tickets: $14 General / $12 Students and Seniors. Ticket reservations and info: 802-254-9276

Twilight Music presents an acoustic music triple bill featuring bluegrass, jazz, Americana and roots music mandolinist Matt Flinner and his trio, folk singer/songwriter Pete Bernhard and old-time music duo String Band.  The concert celebrates the release of the new Matt Flinner Trio CD “Winter Harvest” with a “Music du Jour” show in which each member of the trio writes one tune the day of the show, and all three new tunes are debuted on that night’s concert.  Bernhard, the guitarist and frontman of the roots trio The Devil Makes Three, and String Band, Brattleboro-based multi-instrumentalists Jackson Emmer and Sam Moss, will open the show.

Since its inception in 2002, the Matt Flinner Trio has performed its own innovative brand of acoustic string band music across the country to rave reviews.  Mandolinist Matt Flinner, guitarist Ross Martin and bassist Eric Thorin add robust originality to a wide variety of American roots-based musical styles.  Drawing from bluegrass, jazz and Celtic music, and best described as Americana, New Acoustic or Chamber Grass, their music is guaranteed to be fresh and original.  The band’s conversational melodic exchanges, harmonic counterpoint and rhythmic precision are beautifully engaging and complex, with each instrument highlighted and voiced to suit the puzzle piece-like song structures.  Their innovative songwriting approach, called “Music du Jour,” makes for challenging inspiration for the band and a varied, exciting and spontaneous performance for the audience.

Multi-instrumentalist Matt Flinner has made a career out of playing acoustic music in new ways.  Whether it’s with his trio, the Frank Vignola Quartet, Steve Martin, the Ying Quartet, Tim O’Brien or Leftover Salmon, Flinner’s style and compositional ability have established him as one of the most accomplished and musically diverse mandolinists in the world.  Starting out as a banjo prodigy, he took up the mandolin at a young age, eventually winning a mandolin award in 1991 at the National Banjo Contest in Winfield Kansas, adding to his title of National Banjo Champion which he earned the year before.  Since then, he has been recognized as a premiere mandolinist, as well as one of the finest new acoustic/roots music composers today.  Ross Martin and Eric Thorin join Flinner having previously performed bluegrass, jazz and salsa music with the likes of The Tony Furtado Band, Mollie O’Brien, Darol Anger, Leftover Salmon and members of the String Cheese Incident.

Raised in rural Vermont, Pete Bernhard moved to California soon after high school and formed the blues, ragtime, country, folk and rockabilly trio The Devil Makes Three.  With a short break in his band’s busy touring schedule across the US and Canada, Bernhard returns to his home state for a rare solo show – just voice, guitar and harmonica.

String Band performs raw, yowling takes on the old-time/country canon.  Sam Moss and Jackson Emmer have re-framed these tunes, unveiling their truly lonesome and danceable beauty.  Expect fiddles, banjos, and the like. Sam has been praised by NPR, Pop Matters and Blurt Magazine, and Jackson has performed with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Sam Bush and others.

The concert is presented in conjunction with Next Stage Arts Project.  For more information, visit www.mattflinner.com, www.petebernhard.com, and www.jacksonemmer.bandcamp.com/album/string-band-album.