PUTNEY, Vt. – Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present mandolin duo Matt Flinner & Joe K. Walsh at Next Stage, on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 7:30 p.m. Known for their mastery of the mandolin and tasteful musicality, Flinner and Walsh bring rich voices and diverse textures to the acoustic and bluegrass worlds.
Vermont-based multi-instrumentalist Flinner has made a career out of playing acoustic music in new ways. Starting out as a banjo prodigy who was playing bluegrass festivals before he entered his teens, Flinner later took up the mandolin, won the National Banjo Contest at Winfield, Kan., in 1990, and took the mandolin award there the following year. Since then, he has become recognized as one of the premiere mandolinists, as well as one of the finest new acoustic/roots music composers today. He has toured and recorded with a wide variety of bluegrass, new acoustic, classical, and jazz artists, including Tim O’Brien, Frank Vignola, Steve Martin, Darrell Scott, Leftover Salmon, Alison Brown, The Ying Quartet, Tony Trischka, Darol Anger, and the Nashville Chamber Orchestra. His two solo CDs on Compass Records, “The View from Here” and “Latitude,” are widely considered classics in the new acoustic/modern bluegrass style.
Hailed by David Grisman as a “wonderful mandolin player,” and by Anger as “one of the finest mandolin players ever,” Portland, Maine-based musician Walsh is best known for his collaborations and recordings with acoustic music luminaries including Anger, Brittany Haas, Molly Tuttle, Sam Grisman, Danny Barnes, Scott Nygaard, Mike Marshall’s Ger Mandolin Ensemble, and pop-grass darlings Joy Kills Sorrow, a band he cofounded. He has performed at festivals, clubs, and theaters all over North America and Europe. After a number of award-winning years with bluegrass stars the Gibson Brothers, Walsh currently splits his time between the stylistically-omnivorous string band Mr. Sun, the Mike Block Trio, a duo with Flinner, and a trio with Ella Jordan and Jed Wilson, moving seamlessly between mandolin, mandola, octave mandolin, and mandocello. An in-demand educator, Walsh is an associate professor at the Berklee College of Music, and he teaches regularly at music camps and workshops across North America and Europe, and online through Peghead Nation.
Next Stage is located at 15 Kimball Hill in downtown Putney, Vt. Tickets are available discounted in advance at www.nextstagearts.org. Next Stage will provide a beer, wine, and cocktail cash bar. For information, call 802-387-0102 or visit the website above.
As part of Next Stage’s 15th anniversary celebration, two of its founders, Eric Bass and Virginia Scholl, will be honored at this event.
Funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the six New England state arts agencies.