February 2018
Homegrown Music is WVIA-FM's exclusive series which each week showcases the talents of regional contemporary music artists in recordings produced in the WVIA-FM studios by series host George Graham and is broadcast Tuesdays at 9:00 PM. A special feature during February is a live Homegrown Music jazz concert with Virginia Mayhew and Esteban Castro on the 12th. Further information on Homegrown Music may be obtained via the World Wide Web at http://homegrownmusic.info and http://www.wvia.org/radio/local/homegrown-music/ |
Feb. 6 Doerfel Family Bluegrass. Originally from Upstate New York, the Doerfel Family toured and played together and were popular on the bluegrass festival circuit. At the time of this session ten years ago, members ranged from age 12 to 19. Since then, five of the siblings have gone electric as Fuel on Fire. We spotlight the band’s first-rate bluegrass with both original and traditional music. Encore from 2008. |
Feb 12 A Homegrown Music Jazz Concert with VIRGINIA MAYHEW and ESTEBAN CASTRO. WVIA’s monthly series of exclusive live radio concert-broadcasts features an evening of generation-spanning jazz. | |||
Saxophonist and composer Virginia Mayhew has been leading her own ensembles for 25 years, and has performed in groups such diverse artists as Earl “Fatha” Hines and Frank Zappa. She also regularly appears with the Duke Ellington Legacy orchestra, led by Edward Kennedy Ellington II. Her debut recording as a leader was on Chiaroscuro Records in 1997. She will be joined in a duo with pianist Roberta Piket, a notable jazz artist in her own right, and who like Ms. Mayhew was a guest on the late Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz program. Ms. Piket’s most recent release was a tribute to McPartland. | |||
In 2016, fifteen-year-old Esteban Castro was the First Prize winner in the Parmigiani Montreux (Switzerland) Jazz Festival Solo Piano Competition during the summer of 2016, the youngest ever to participate in the festival competitions. He put in a very impressive performance at the 2017 Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts. Now we are pleased to welcome this up-and-coming jazz star to the Homegrown Music series. He will be performing a solo set. | |||
As usual WVIA’s members and listeners are invited to be part of the studio audience in Sordoni Theater at the station’s Public Broadcasting Center headquarters. Reservations are free on a first-come-first-served basis. Reserve seats here: http://www.wvia.org/about/sordoni-theater-reservations/ Note: start time 8:00 PM. |
Jan. 16 56 Men. A first-rate melodic rock quartet from the Philadelphia area, 56 Men (named after the number of people who signed the Declaration of Independence) traces their origins go back to the 1980s. They recently released an EP called Holy Hannah, and they perform some music from that and other original material in an encore of their 2016 session. |
Feb. 20 Timothy Zieger. Northeastern Pennsylvania singer-songwriter Timothy Zieger makes his Homegrown Music debut with a collection of melodic original acoustic songs, performed with a quartet including his wife Abigail and family friends Seth and Sarah Mitchell. |
Feb. 27 Bella Ruse. This distinctive and often delightfully quirky husband/wife duo performs original material that sounds as if came out a time warp from early in the last century, with often amusing lyrics, and unconventional instrumentation such as a kazoo and a manual typewriter. Encore from 2012. |