Sunspot is a three-year-old concert series in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, just across the river from Washington, DC. Our primary venue is the 130-seat Lecture Hall of the historic Lyceum, though we also use other local historic buildings for some shows.
Built in 1839, the Lyceum has been the town library, a hospital for the Union army in the Civil War, an office building and residential apartments. Reborn in 1976 as the nation's first Bicentenial Center, the Lyceum is now the History Museum for the City of Alexandria. The Lyceum Lecture Hall provides an ideal space for intimate concerts.
Our shows focus on traditional Irish, Scottish, Americana and Old-Time. The shows are almost always on weekends.
UPCOMING SUNSPOT SHOWS
Saturday, May 9, - Grammy-winning Irish singer Susan McKeown
Once heard, you would never take Susan McKeown for anyone else. When the Sunspot series started, she was at the top of our "must have" list, along with Karan Casey and Cathie Ryan. Now Susan, a 2006 Grammy winner, will be making her first appearance in a Sunspot concert this May.
Susan McKeown is renowned for her groundbreaking work with her band Chanting House, which included future Solas founder John Doyle, and for her long collaboration with the Scottish fiddler Johnny Cunningham. More recently, she was the singer behind all the songs in Arena Stage’s production of Peter and Wendy.
Lorin Sklamberg, the voice of the Klezmatics, decided with his band mates to seek an additional vocalist for their Woody Guthrie project Wonder Wheel. Their choice was Susan. The resulting album went on to win the 2006 GRAMMY award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.
Following on the heels of their joint GRAMMY win, Susan and Lorin began work on an exciting musical collaboration: an album of Yiddish and Irish song that will be released in early 2009.
Culled from rare archive material and old recordings, Susan and Lorin have selected songs on various themes from the Jewish and Irish traditions: love, death, betrothal, betrayal and the demon drink, as well as cumulative and macaronic songs are represented.
“We love singing together and started to explore the connections between Yiddish and Irish songs awhile ago,†says Susan. The bulk of the Jewish material is being drawn from the papers of the legendary collector and performer Ruth Rubin. The Irish songs come from both the popular and the ancient Gaelic sean nós traditions.
Visit Susan's web site and her MySpace page .
Tickets on sale on the Sunspot web site .
Coming this Fall
Saturday, Nov. 21 - Scottish Singer Jim Malcolm
Saturday, Nov. 7 - Cloudstreet - Australian singers Nicole Murray and John Thompson (A Next to the House show in Takoma Park).
NEW SERIES FOR EMERGING ARTISTS
The Lyceum is an ideal venue to present traditional musicians who can draw an ample audience. However, The Lyceum is an expensive venue in which to produce a concert, and there are a number of performers that Sunspot would like to introduce to the area who need to be presented in more informal venue.
To provide a home for concerts by emerging artists, Sunspot has worked with the Institute of Musical Traditions and Contradiction Dance Studio in Takoma Park to begin the "Next to the House" concert series. This series features musicians with promising careers ahead of them, who we expect may soon be performing at Wolftrap, the Birchmere, Strathmore and the Kennedy Center.
Ticket prices are $12 to $15, and you'll find the same refreshments, including shortbread, that you're used to at our Lyceum shows. The shows take place in Contradiction Dance's studio, next to the House of Musical Traditions, at 7014 Westmoreland Avenue, just of Carrol Avenue in Takoma Park. It's a short walk from the Takoma Park Metro station, and there's parking in front of Contradiction Dance and next door behind the House of Musical Traditions.
Come meet some new artists that we think you'll be hearing much more from in the future, and get to know a great new music venue.
The first Next to the House concert in October featured Joy Kills Sorrow , a new band of young Boston-based old-time musicians, including the first musician to graduate from the Berklee College of Music with a degree in mandolin performance. Their lead singer, Emma Beaton, won the Canadian Folk Music Awards 2008 Young Performer of the Year title shortly after their Takoma Park show. For the second show in the series, IMT presented Brooklyn-based The Bowmans . Sisters Sarah and Claire are currently recording a new CD with producer Malcolm Burn, who won a Grammy for producing Emmylou Harris’ Red Dirt Girl. For the third show in December we welcomed Gregory Alan Isakov , the 2007 winner of the Telluride Troubadour Songwriting Competition, from Denver.
In 2009, the Next to the House series has welcomed:
Justin Trawick, winner of the “Emerging Artist Competition†at the 2006 Takoma Park Folk Festival
Firewheel, a Takoma Park duo of John Kadlecik (cofounder and lead guitarist of Dark Star Orchestra) and Katy Gaughan (a hand drummer and drum circle facilitator who has been drumming in Takoma Park for almost 10 years
singer/songwriter Elise Witt
Award-winning performers Cletus Kennelly and Lori Kelley with guest Billy Coulter
New York-based Singer Ben Carroll.
Irish music and dance with the Kitcthen Quartet.
Coming up in the Next to the House series:
Sunday, April 19 - Blues master Ernie Hawkins has been playing concerts, clubs, blues and folk festivals, workshops, colleges, museums, parties, fist fights and millennium celebrations in the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe and at every stop in the road from A Prairie Home Companion to Antone's to the Madrid Jazz Festival. He has played with blues greats such as Son House, Mance Lipscomb, Fred McDowell, Jim Brewer, Rev. Gary Davis and many others.
Saturday, April 25 - Hanneke Cassel with Natalie Haas and Keith Murphy. Hanneke Cassel, the 1997 U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion, is joined by cellist Natalie Haas, who performs with Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser, and Keith Murphy, who plays guitar and mandolin with the noted contradance band Nightingale.
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Past Sunspot shows have included performances by:
Irish singer Karan Casey (March 21, 2009)
Jim Malcolm (November 23, 2008)
Robin Spielberg (April 18, 2008)
Emily Smith (April 4, 2008) with Laura Cortese and Aoife O'Donovan
Cathie Ryan (March 9, 2008)
Mick Moloney , Athena Tergis , John Doyle , (Feb. 29, 2008)
Kristin Andreassen (Feb. 16, 2008)
Danny Knicely and Friends, Bluegrass and Beyond (Feb. 2, 2008)
Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion (Jan. 19, 2008)
The Wiyos (Oct. 27, 2007)
Boulder Acoustic Society with Gabrielle Louise (July 27, 2007)
The Hedge Band (May 27, 2007)
Jennifer Cutting's Ocean Quartet (May 11, 2007)
Liz Carroll & John Doyle (Feb. 15, 2007)
Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas (Jan. 20, 2007)
Kristin Andreassen and Mark Schatz (Jan. 6, 2007)
Jim Malcolm (Nov. 12, 2006)
Boulder Acoustic Society (Sept. 30, 2006)
John Doyle (Aug. 20, 2006) ( Pictures from the show)
Cathie Ryan (July 16, 2006) ( Pictures from the show)
Kevin Burke & Ged Foley (April 15, 2006) ( Pictures from the show)
Aoife Clancy (March 31, 2006) ( Pictures from the show)
Morwenna Lasko & Jay Pun ( Pictures from the show)
Flook (Feb. 26, 2006) ( Pictures from the show)
The Laura Cortese Band (Feb. 4, 2006)
Old School Freight Train (Jan, 22, 2006)
Sometymes Why (Dec. 11, 2005) Kristin Andreassen, Aoife O'Donovan and Ruth Ungar
The Four Fabulous Fiddlers (Nov. 18, 2005) Hanneke Cassel , Jake Armerding , Jeremy Kittel and Laura Cortese
Lissa Schneckenburger (Oct. 18, 2005)
John Doyle (Aug. 26, 2005)
The Kane Sisters (Aug. 21, 2005)
Tony Trischka (June 17, 2005)
Cathie Ryan (May 29, 2005)
Karan Casey (March 20, 2005)
Sunspot Concert Newsletter: Sign up for our Concert Newsletter. In addition to announcing Sunspot's upcoming shows, we also tell you about other traditional music and dance events in the DC area. Check out some of the past newsletters that we've posted.
