April Verch

The Folk Music Society is very excited to present Canadian fiddler, step dancer and singer-songwriter April Verch and her band for April's debut at Caltech. Her ninth recording, Bright as Gold, find her confident and in full command of her craft. She's so fluent in folk traditions - the Canadian ones she was born into and the American ones she later found her way to - that old fiddle tunes like those featured in the Canadian medley Dusty Miller, Fiddle Fingers and Grizzly Bear and the Appalachian medly Edward in the Treetop, Yellow Jacket and Quit That Tickling Me sound positively reinvigorat6ed. Originals like her instrumental waltz, Morris & Boris, and country courting number, The Only One, are clearly made to last. The April Verch Band - rounded out by bassist and clawhammer banjo player Cody Walters and guitarist Hayes Grifffin, who has a masters degree in jazz improv from the New England Conservatory - is an energetic, virtuosic, tradition-celebrating outfit. It doesn't hurt that the thrilling grand finale involved Verch fiddling and step dancing - and often executing two entirely different, intricate rhythmic patterns - at once.