BELLOWS FALLS — On Friday, July 10, at 7:30 p.m., Stone Church Arts will present an evening of new music for cello and guitar featuring Eugene Friesen with Ian Ethan Case at Immanuel Episcopal Church, 20 Church St.
The evening will include solos and duets plus new collaborative compositions that involve “looping”: live recorded layers of sound resulting in a large ensemble effect.
Eugene Friesen, four-time Grammy-winning cellist with the Paul Winter Consort and faculty member at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, has blazed a new trail for the cello as a jazz, rock and world music instrument. Friesen's music integrates the sounds of nature along with innovative rhythmic techniques from folk traditions all over the planet.
This past year Friesen performed and taught in China, Australia, Egypt, and Brazil in addition to appearances in the United States.
Acoustic double-neck guitarist Case plays a unique brand of acoustic instrumental music. One of a few musicians worldwide to tackle the double-neck guitar in earnest, he fluidly combines a staggering variety of self-invented playing techniques necessitated by his energetic and stunning multi-layered compositions.
While audiences consistently remark on the fascinating visual aspects of watching Case play as his hands weave between fretboards and slap, tap, knock, strum, and pluck various other parts of the instrument to life, his unusual methods are clearly by-products of the rich, deeply heartfelt, and powerfully uplifting music that he writes and plays.
Friesen and Case have presented their unique music in a series of concerts at the Boston Museum of Science Planetarium this past concert season. The Bellows Falls performance is part of Friesen's “Vermont Improv Intensive,” a workshop that draws participants to Vermont from all over the world.
On Saturday evening, July 11, there will be a free concert at the Stone Church in Bellows Falls, featuring workshop participants including professional concert artists and educators making their improvisational debuts.