The Fisher Center Presents Grammy Award-Winning Band The Carolina Chocolate Drops in Concert, September 15

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Grammy Award–winning band the Carolina Chocolate Drops will be in concert at the Sosnoff Theater of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College on Saturday, September 15 at 8 p.m. The New York Times raved their concerts are “an end-to-end display of excellence . . . They dip into styles of Southern black music from the 1920s and 30s—string-band music, jug-band music, fife and drum, early jazz—and beam their curiosity outward. They make short work of their instructive mission and spend their energy on things that require it: flatfoot dancing, jug playing, shouting.” Tickets are $40, $30, $20, $15, or $10 for students. To purchase tickets, please call the box office at (845) 758-7900 or go to www.fishercenter.bard.edu.

With their 2010 Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig—which garnered a Best Traditional Folk Album Grammy—the Carolina Chocolate Drops proved that the old-time, fiddle and banjo–based music they so scrupulously researched and passionately performed could be a living, breathing, ever-evolving sound. Starting with material culled from the Piedmont region of the Carolinas, they sought to freshly interpret this work, not merely recreate it, highlighting the central role African-Americans played in shaping our nation’s popular music from its beginnings more than a century ago. The virtuosic trio’s approach was provocative and revelatory. On their second album, Leaving Eden, produced by Nashville stalwart Buddy Miller and recorded in his home studio, the Carolina Chocolate Drops illustrate their adaptability to growth and change as the original lineup expands from three to five players and their new repertoire incorporates more blues, jazz and folk balladry alongside brilliantly rendered string-band tunes. 

The group’s founding members are singers and multi-instrumentalists Rhiannon Giddens and Dom Flemons. Three new players include beat-boxer Adam Matta, Brooklyn-based guitarist, banjo player and singer Hubby Jenkins, and New Orleans-based cellist Leyla McCalla. Over the past year, the Carolina Chocolate Drops have played to a remarkably wide range of concert-goers, appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival, the Grand Ole Opry, the Cambridge Folk Festival, and as part of the Dave Matthews Band Caravan, among many other events. For more information about the band, please visit www.carolinachocolatedrops.com.

This event was last updated on 07-23-2013

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