Folklore Society
c/o University of Chicago
5706 S University Ave
Chicago, IL 60637
Phone:  312-725-2848

Performers

Brìghde Chaimbeul

Photo by Steve Bliss

Scotland's Brìghde Chaimbeul - winner of the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Horizon Award and 2016 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk award—currently making her mark on the global stage.  A native Gaelic speaker, her style is rooted in her native language and culture but draws inspiration from a variety of global piping traditions such as from Cape Breton, Eastern Europe, and Ireland.  She most recently was chosen as the only Scottish artist featured at ESNS 2021 and one out of two UK featured artists at WOMEX 2020.

Her debut album "The Reeling" was named as "Folk Album Of The Month" by The Guardian, given five-star reviews in both fRoots and Songlines, lavished with praise by BBC Radio 3's Late Junction, and listed as one of The Quietus's "Albums Of The Year."  The Reeling was voted one of the 20 "Scottish Albums Of The Year" by the Say Awards (out of 293 submissions) and secured a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award win for Brìghde.

Growing up in a musical family in Sleat on the Isle of Skye, Brìghde was no stranger to the sound of the pipes, and indeed the sound of music at home.  She took up piping when she was just four years old, and began studying the instrument three years later.  Brìghde has devised a completely new way of arranging for pipe music that emphasizes the rich textural drones of the smallpipes; with a constancy of sound that creates a trance-like quality in the tunes.

Gorrión Serrano

Gorrión Serrano is a three-generation family band based in Mexico City consisting of Alejandro Montaņo on guitarron (bass), Jesús Camacho on jarana huasteca (a small eastern Mexican tenor guitar), and Alex Montaño Moreno on violin.

The band specializes in son huasteco music, originating from eastern Mexico, which is also commonly known in the region as huapango, a northeastern Mexican folk dance and music style.  "Huapango" likely derives from the Nahuatl word "cuauhpanco" which means "on top of the wood," alluding to a wooden platform on which dancers perform zapateado (heel-tapping) dance steps.  Son huasteco is played by a trio of musicians with the two guitarists singing coplas, or short poetry stanzas, alternating verses between them.

Gorrión Serrano also performs works from northern Mexico, Oaxaca, Tierra Caliente, and Chiapas. Through their efforts to preserve traditional Mexican folk music, the band hopes to preserve their heritage for future generations.

Hubby Jenkins

Photo by Horatio Baltz

Hubby Jenkins is a talented multi-instrumentalist who endeavors to share his love and knowledge of old-time American music.  Born and raised in Brooklyn, he delved into his Southern roots, following the thread of African American history woven through country blues, ragtime, fiddle and banjo, and traditional jazz.

Hubby started as a busker, developing his guitar and vocal craft on the sidewalks and subway platforms of New York City.  An ambitiously itinerant musician, he took his show on the road, playing the streets, coffee shops, bars, and house parties of cities around the country.

Hubby connected with the Grammy award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, and from 2010-2014 he played an integral role in the band.  Since 2015, he has been an active touring and recording member of the Rhiannon Giddens band, included on the 2015 album “Tomorrow Is My Turn,” and the 2017 album “Freedom Highway.”  Around these projects Hubby continues to make solo performances.

Germaine

Germaine is a musical project mixing traditional singing, step dancing, foot-tapping, fiddle, and bodhran. Old-time songs from Quebec are remastered into arrangements that focus on rhythm with the use of traditional percussion.  The band takes a new look at a feminine and feminist repertoire while exploring the richness of traditional texts.

Band members include :
Myrianne Cardin-Houde:  voice, foot-tapping
Marie-Laurence Lamothe-Hétu:  voice
Florence Mailhot-Léonard:  voice, step dancing, foot-tapping
Mélina Mauger-Lavigne:  voice, step dancing, bodhran
Patricia Ho-Yi Wang:  voice, fiddle, foot-tapping

Germaine reclaims the strength of character and resilience of women of the past, whose voices still resonate in today's context.

Kevin Henderson

Photo by Sophie Bech

Kevin Henderson is a fiddler who draws on the rich fiddle music tradition of his native Shetland (a group of islands located off the northern coast of Scotland) and his experience with leading bands including Boys of the Lough, Fiddlers`Bid, Session A9, and The Nordic Fiddler's Bloc to create an expressive and adventurously individual musical style.

With school friends Chris Stout, Andrew Gifford, and Maurice Henderson, Kevin formed Fiddlers Bid, a band that continues to represent the finest of Shetland fiddling allied with harmonic invention, creative subtlety, and enthusiastic vigor — almost thirty years, innumerable gigs, and four enthusiastically received albums later.

Since moving to Norway, while maintaining connections with his previous bands, Kevin has put his heart and soul into Nordic Fiddlers Bloc, a meeting of three very distinctive musical styles where simplicity and directness are key.  Their blend of Norwegian, Swedish, and Shetland accents and their command of varying tones and voicings have led to ecstatic receptions on both sides of the North Sea and across the Atlantic.

Cedric Watson

Cedric Watson is a four-time Grammy-nominated fiddler, singer, accordionist, and songwriter - one of the brightest young talents to emerge in Cajun, Creole, and Zydeco (Louisiana French) music over the last decade.

Originally from San Felipe, TX (population 868), Cedric made his first appearance at the age of 19 at the Zydeco Jam at The Big Easy in Houston, TX.&npsp; Just two years later, he moved to south Louisiana, quickly immersing himself in French music and language.  Over the next several years, Cedric performed French music in 17 countries and on 7 full-length albums with various groups, including the Pine Leaf Boys, Corey Ledet, Les Amis Creole, and with his own group, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole.

Cedric will be playing the accordion and fiddle with his quartet including Chris Stafford (guitar), Serge Billeaudeaux (bass), and Adam Cormier (drums).

David Davis and the Warrior River Boys

Davis is an Alabama native and member of The Alabama Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, and has served as the frontman for the band since 1984.

Davis is recognized as one of the foremost practitioners of the Monroe mandolin technique. His interest in old-time and bluegrass music grew organically from a musical family, and both his father and grandfather were players and singers.

The members of the Warrior River Boys include Robert Montgomery (banjo), Marty Hays (bass), Stan Willemon (guitar), and Phillip James (fiddle, guitar, mandolin, and bass).

Dromeno

Dromeno is a traditional ensemble presenting regional folk music from the Greek mainland and beyond, overlapping into the surrounding regions and finding the musical legacy that connects the traditions of the Balkans.

Featuring clarinet and voices, the instrumentation includes accordion, saxophone, violin, oud, bouzouki, zourna, guitar, laouto, kanun, and percussion, and enables the group to span the sounds of Greek music, from western Macedonia and Ipiros, through Thessaly, Thrace, and Asia minor.  The band includes Christos Govetas, Ruth Hunter, Eleni Govetas, Bobby Govetas, and Nikos Maroussis.

Bruce Greene

Fiddler Robert Bruce Greene is known worldwide for preserving and playing old-time Kentucky fiddle music.  He's also a skilled old-time banjo player, singer, and collector of traditional Appalachian music and culture.  Bruce has lived and worked among the people of Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina for more than 40 years, bringing to his playing the intimacy and dignity he absorbed through his apprenticeships with musicians born as far back as the 1880s.