Alan Jabbour and Ken Perlman in Elko
on May 15
Fiddler Alan Jabbour and Banjo player Ken Perlman were at the Western Folklife Center on Tuesday, May 15, conducting a fiddle workshop and a banjo workshop at 10:00 am and performing in concert at 7:00pm. The hands-on workshops were free, open to the public, and beginners were welcomed.
Concert tickets were pre-purchasable at the Western Folklife Center Gift Shop at 501 Railroad Street or at the door beginning at 6:30 pm. Tickets were $10; Western Folklife Center members, students and seniors were $8. The Pioneer Saloon was open for business at 6:30 pm.
Jabbour and Perlman began performing together a decade ago: both teach as well as perform and tour, and their duet style is a benchmark in oldtime fiddle and banjo performance, with complex patterns, rich interpretations, and graceful elaboration of the oldtime repertory.
Alan Jabbour's collecting and performing have had a powerful impact on the revival of old-time instrumental music over the past half century. His repertory of old-time tunes—particularly the beautiful old tunes of Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia—was adopted by his band, the Hollow Rock String Band, whose repertory and style became a shaping influence on the burgeoning instrumental folk music revival of the 1960s and 1970s. The influence continues today, and Alan has helped it along by returning to an active schedule of performance and teaching since his retirement from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in 1999. His performance style features complex bowing patterns and a high-energy but graceful elaboration of the old-time repertory, and the tunes are always accompanied by lively storytelling that illuminates the sources and significance of the tunes.
Ken Perlman is a consummate banjo player who grew up in New York City and in the 1970s became an architect and exponent of what has come to be known as the melodic clawhammer banjo style. His early career focused on the southern instrumental repertory, but his travels in the Northeast, Canada and the British Isles led him to begin exploring and applying to five-string banjo and guitar the rich instrumental traditions of those regions. In particular, he has become the leading documentarian of the fiddle music of the Canadian Maritime province of Prince Edward Island, and he has brilliantly adapted that repertory to his melodic clawhammer style on the banjo.
This concert was supported by the Nevada Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Union Pacific Foundation. For more information, contact Tamara Kubacki at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 775-738-7508 ext. 223.
