Due to unforeseen circumstances, George Winston’s Feb 11 performance at The Ark will be rescheduled to a future date. You will be notified by email after this date is determined.
Please retain your tickets and they will be honored on the new date. Once the date is announced, patrons will have 30 days to request a refund if they are not able to attend the new date.
Opener: Abigail Stauffer
The Ark 316 S. Main, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesJess Merritt is an Ann Arbor singer and songwriter whose rich, soulful voice evokes a unique emotional resonance. From power ballads to velvet keys, soul and rock to blues and pop, listeners are headed into a memorable experience by this expansive and versatile artist.
This special “musical memoir” performance marks Jess’s 40th birthday and a return to the stage with her band, the Understorey, after a 5-year hiatus. The Understorey is composed of longtime collaborators Josef Deas and Jenny Jones and new members Brennan Andes, Jon Brown and TJ Zindle. The show will feature a mix of original songs, covers and stories about the “path to renaming and reclaiming” herself, along with special guests.
What better time than Valentine's Day to get to know some married or partnered couples who make music together? My Folky Valentine is The Ark's annual celebration of romance! Each year we present a few of the region's top musical couples, in the round during Valentine's Day week. Your hosts, Annie and Rod Capps, invite some of their most talented friends from around the region to share the stage for an evening of grand collaboration and anything but love songs! . . . Okay, well, maybe a few love songs, since this year My Folky Valentine falls on the day itself. Can you imagine anything sweeter than a pair of tickets to see this show? This year's lineup features Jenny & Robin Bienemann from Chicago and Ruth & Max Bloomquist from Ludington.
There’s something uniquely fun about Amy LaVere, even when she’s breaking your heart. She is well known among songwriters and critics alike. NPR’s Robert Siegel says she “specializes in lyrics that are more barbed than her sweet soprano prepares you for.” Her growing catalog of material and steady critical acclaim suggest a first-tier presence on the Americana and indie-folk/punk circuits. Amy’s live performances are anything but predictable. She might appear on stage with a full band, sporting a mask and pink wig, or simply be in blue jeans and sandals, but her upright bass and clever song delivery are constants. Her voice is at once the bully and the victim. She’s performed in venues as wide-ranging as St. Andrew’s Hall in London and Memphis’ famed dive bar Earnestine and Hazel’s. There’s no room she can’t find an audience in and charm it to pieces. Tonight LaVere is joined by her guitarist (and husband since 2014), Will Sexton, an Austinite who has worked with Steve Stills, Roky Erickson, and Waylon Jennings.
Opener: Jim Roll
The Ark 316 S. Main, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesAs a fixture of the Michigan folk music scene for over a decade, Misty Lyn Bergeron has penned haunting melodies over simple arrangements that traverse the gothic, literary fringes of American roots music. Pulling from a wealth of vivid subject matter, her songs are cathartic and poetically rich works that approach sometimes difficult topics such as death, loss, heartache, and healing. After getting in a serious car accident in 2015, there has been a noticeable shift toward love, light, and hope in her music, while still maintaining a deep connection with the things that are lost and those that are fading. Members ofTthe Big Beautiful include Matt Jones (drums), Ryan Gimpert (guitar and pedal steel), Carol Catherine Gray (fiddle, vocals, tambo), and Jim Roll (bass). Misty Lyn & The Big Beautiful come to The Ark with a new release, “The Narrows.”
Ask about the new generation of social justice music-makers ,and Crys Matthews will be mentioned. A southeastern North Carolina native who now calls Washington, D.C., home, Crys has been compared to everyone from Toshi Reagon to Tracy Chapman and Ruthie Foster. A prolific lyricist, Crys blends Americana, folk, jazz, blues, bluegrass, and funk into a bold, complex performance steeped in traditional melodies punctuated by honest, original lyrics.
Bill Frisell can be a hard musician to classify. You'll find him in the jazz bins (or at the jazz link), and he's been called the most brilliant jazz guitarist since Wes Montgomery. But he's the kind of jazz musician who looks outward to other music, and his guitar can do just about anything, from any genre. It can approximate the sound of a country steel guitar, can wail the blues, can break new ground in music like Jimi Hendrix did. And he plays his own compositions, each one intricately woven into the capabilities of his instrument. As a collaborator, Bill Frisell is one of the most sought-after voices in contemporary guitar. His Ark shows have an intimacy that's hard to find at his dates in larger cities.
Buffalo Rose is a wildly charismatic six-piece modern folk/Americana band from Pittsburgh. They take the singer-songwriter tradition to a new level by crafting original songs which are emotive, meticulously arranged, and inspired by a world of idiosyncratic influences that never let a dull or predictable moment creep in. Fans of Lake Street Dive, Nickel Creek, and Punch Brothers will find much to like in this crew.
Tonight's performance has been postponed due to weather conditions. Please retain your tickets and they will be honored on the new date. Once the date is announced, patrons will have 30 days to request a refund if they are not able to attend the new date.
“It’s hard to know how people are gonna react,” Chris Knight says of “Almost Daylight,” his ninth album and first new recording in over seven years. “I’ve written songs about a lot of different things going all the way back to my first record, and some folks still think ‘somebody kills somebody’ is all I write about. Maybe that’s why I was bound and determined to get these particular songs on this album. If people like them, then we’ll be fine. But I wasn’t gonna do it any other way.” For the past 20 years, Chris Knight has only made music his own way. And now with “Almost Daylight,” Knight delivers the most powerful – and unexpected – music of his career.
A native of Michigan, Rochelle Clark writes music that has been described as raw, honest, and beautifully vulnerable. She writes and sings about real life, joy, struggle and human tragedy – you can’t help but feel for the characters in her songs. Leaning heavily on personal experience, she connects on an intimate level that resonates with her audience. As one half of the acclaimed Americana duo The Potters Field, Rochelle has offered powerful vocals that have been captivating audiences in Michigan and throughout the Midwest for years. Drawing on her roots in folk, Americana, and country, Rochelle has found a sound that is uniquely her own. In January 2020 she released her first solo recording; an EP titled "In Time," and she’s continuing to explore her voice as a solo songwriter. Joining Rochelle will be a band of exceptional musicians (affectionately dubbed The Familiars) who include Jason Dennie, Keith Bilick, and John Sperendi.
Liars have been around since the snake first hit it off with Eve. By some accounts, contests celebrating liars have been around since the 15th century, but these accounts may be apocryphal. Today, liars contests are held in countries all around the globe, and The Ark is joining the fray with its First Annual Liars contest, which is part of the new and expanded 36th Annual Storytelling Festival. The event will feature six of the best liars in the region, each telling a ten-minute story and competing for highly valuable bragging rights, a crisp $100 bill, and a fabulous trophy for the winner! Each of our distinguished celebrity judges has a special relationship to the fine art of prevarication.
Saturday brings storytellers Bill Harley, Sheila Arnold, and Steve Daut. Bill Harley is a songwriter and storyteller whose commentaries have been featured on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. He's equally at home performing for adults and for families, and a refreshing breath of fantasy is just around the corner in everything he does. Sheila Arnold brings stories, historic individuals, new ideas, new perspectives and old knowledge to schools, libraries, professional organizations, museums and churches. And Steve Daut is well known to Michigan audiences; he has adapted stories of Mark Twain to the storytelling medium.