The Roxbury Arts Group Announces "Jake Blount, Nic Gareiss, Sammy Wetstein Trio”

Saturday May 25, 7:30p

607-326-7608 or roxburyartsgroup.org 

Jake Blount, Nic Gareiss and Sammy Wetstein trio kick off the 2024 performance season at the Roxbury Roxbury Arts Center on Saturday May 25th, 2024 at 7:30pm when they will blend scholarship, identity and performance practice to draw old time music traditions into a fuller and brighter future. Their years of experience as performers draw them into the spontaneous creative force at the heart of music-making and brings those fresh bonds to bear in a new performance: a paean to strong roots and musical co-infatuations traced in wood, flesh, and gesture. The concert on Saturday May 25th, 2024 at 7:30pm is at the Roxbury Arts Center, 5025 Vega Mountain Road, Roxbury, NY.  Ticket prices are varied and can be reserved at roxburyartsgroup.org or by calling  607.326.7908.

Jake Blount (Providence, RI) is a singer and multi-instrumentalist. His recent Smithsonian Folkways release, The New Faith, is an Afrofuturist exploration of American folk music and merges centuries-old traditional songs with modern genres like hip hop. Blount’s work makes significant contributions to American roots music by recovering and restoring the music of black and indigenous artists that were purposely segregated and erased by white record labels in the past. He then produces original music through his own gender-queer and afro-futurist lens- providing a joyous and sonorous healing of the historic record. A winner of the 2021 Steve Martin Banjo Prize and a Smithsonian Folkways recording artist, American Songwriter has dubbed him the “King of Roots.” 

Percussive dancer Nic Gareiss (Lansing, MI) has been named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” and has been hailed by the New York Times for their “dexterous melding of Irish and Appalachian dance.” His performances are often curated to call attention to what we would now call gender queer themes hidden within traditional song and dance. In 2020, Gareiss received the Michigan Heritage Award, the highest honor his home state bestows on traditional artists. 

Sammy Wetstein (Boston, MA) is a musician who infuses folk and jazz music with improvisational creativity. He has performed at the Newport Folk Festival, The Shalin Liu Performance Center, and the International Bluegrass Music Association conference.  He is currently a student at Berklee College of Music focusing on jazz and roots cello performance. 

Celebrate the rhythms and deepest roots of American music with the Jake Blount, Nic Gareiss and Sammy Wetstein, award-winning folk artists who join forces to bring an evening of vibrant synergy, deft movements, and stories on Saturday May 25 at 7:30pm at Roxbury Arts Center, 5025 Vega Mountain Road, Roxbury, NY.  For more information, connect with the Roxbury Arts Group at roxburyartsgroup.org or call 607.326.7908.

All programs offered by the Roxbury Arts Group are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the NYS Legislature, the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O’Connor Foundation, the Robinson Broadhurst Foundation, The Community Foundation for South Central New York, the Tianaderrah Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Delaware National Bank of Delhi