BRUNSWICK – Claw-hammer banjo player Ken Perlman and Cape Breton fiddler Brenda Stubbert will perform a concert, “Strings Across the Border,” Saturday, April 3, at Bowdoin College.

The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m, in Kresge Auditorium of the Visual Arts Center on the campus.

Perlman is both a pioneer of the five-string banjo style known as “melodic claw hammer” and a master of finger-style guitar.

He’s considered one of the top claw-hammer players in the world, known in particular for his skillful adaptations of Celtic fiddle tunes.

He draws his material from traditional sources: the music of Scotland, Ireland, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island and the American South. Much of his repertoire had never before been played on five-string banjo or guitar.

Also a folklorist, Perlman spent more than a decade collecting tunes and oral histories from traditional fiddle players on Prince Edward Island.

Two outgrowths of his research are a tune book, “The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island,” and a two-CD anthology, “The Prince Edward Island Style of Fiddling.” Both works received awards from the PEI Heritage Foundation.

Stubbert was raised in Point Aconi, a small Cape Breton fishing and mining community. The area is known for its rich musical traditions, and her home had regular musical visitors including fiddlers Winston Fitzgerald, Johnny Wilmot and Joe Confiant.

At age 5, Stubbert took up piano and dancing, and by 8, she’d started on the fiddle.

Tickets: $10 for the general public, $8 for seniors 65 years or older, $7 for members of the Association of Bowdoin Friends. For tickets or more information, people may call 725-3375.


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