AUBURN – Maine’s Dave Rowe Trio will bring its three-part harmony, guitar picking and fiddling to First Universalist Church Saturday, Aug. 25. The concert will help support a volunteer trip to New Orleans to assist in post-Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.

The concert, just days before the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, is a fundraiser for a city where music rules, said Ellen O’Brien, who along with her husband, Rick, organized a volunteer group of about 25 members and friends of First Universalist. They plan to be in New Orleans during the week of Nov. 18.

Volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, the O’Briens last October helped gut severely damaged houses in St. Bernard Parish. They expect to again work with Habitat for Humanity and with other rebuilding projects through the Gulf Coast Volunteer Program operated by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

Rowe, who is the choir director at First Universalist, is no stranger to the healing power of music. He was looking for healing and a new direction in the spring of 2004, when he met fiddler Ed Howe and bass guitarist Kevin O’Reilly. Rowe asked them to join him on an album he was producing as a tribute to his dad, Tom Rowe, who died earlier that year. The senior Rowe had been choir director at First Universalist, a founding member of the well-known group Schooner Fare and Rowe’s bandmate in the roots band Turkey Hollow.

The Dave Rowe Trio had its first rehearsal St. Patrick’s Day before a live audience. The three musicians provide a high-energy mix of Celtic, bluegrass, folk and maritime music, have released five critically acclaimed albums and tour nationally.

Scott Alarik, writing for the Boston Globe, wrote: “In their youthful zest, pulsing melodicism and pedal-to-the-metal energy, Rowe and his pals prove there’s nothing retro about carrying on the family name.”

The Aug. 25 concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the church, 159 Pleasant St. Tickets are $13 for adults, $11 for seniors and children under 13. For tickets and information, call toll-free (866) 655-7171.