First Wednesday of the Month : Local Cream Songwriter Showcase
Hosted by FocusMusic board member Annette Wasilik : Every first Wednesday of the Month singer/songwriter Annette Wasilik invites a collection of the best local and not-so-local singer/songwriters to perform with her at Hank Dietle's Tavern at 11010 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. The show kicks off at 8pm and is free to attend, but a suggested donation of $20 is... suggested!
Sat 4/13 - Andrew McKnight (Silver Spring)
Laura Baron is unable to perform as scheduled on April 13. FocusMusic will be processing refunds to all ticket holders to the method of payment used for purchase. However, we are delighted to announce that we will be presenting Andrew McKnight tonight to kick off our new Silver Spring venue!
Saturday April 13th, 2024
FocusMusic Presents Andrew McKnight at Church of the Ascension. 633 Sligo Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910 | 7.30pm | adv tickets $25, day-of $30 (members $25 at the door) | Livestream is available for $15 and will be available for at least 48 hours after the event
Since permanently leaving his corporate environmental engineering career in 1996, award-winning folk and Americana artist Andrew McKnight's musical journey has traced nearly a million miles of blue highways, and earned him a wealth of critical acclaim and enthusiastic fans for his captivating performances and ten recordings.
The singer/songwriter, guitarist and storytender's latest solo project Treasures in My Chest is an album and book about his singular experiences exploring his family history, as well as a fine introductory how-to manual.
Hailing from the historic village of Lincoln, Virginia, Andrew also teaches guitar and songwriting, offers a variety of programs and workshops for students and adult learners, and is a consultant for people learning to use DNA for genealogy and family history research. His music is in several documentaries and podcasts, and he has written songs with kindergarteners as well as one on one with veterans to help healing their PTSD.
His ambitious plans for 2024, in addition to writing songs for the next album, are as diverse as his interests. He is featured in and helped produce two music mini-documentaries for release this year. He is helping his cousin, singer and actress Suzanne Lukather, developing her one-woman stage show Little Blue Suitcase. Andrew is launching a new service, interviewing revered family elders on video telling their stories in their own words to future generations. And while development was stalled by the pandemic, he is now finishing work on his inspirational keynote program, “The Gifts in Our Genes”.
More about Andrew at andrewmcknight.net
Since this is a new-to-us venue, we're still working out some kinks - and our audience may be unfamiliar with it! Parking for handicapped is available in the curved driveway in front of the Church. All others may park at the East Silver Spring Elementary School at
631 Silver Spring Ave, Silver Spring, MD 20910.
Advance tickets $25 / day-of and door $30 (member / congregation as-applicable $25 at the door).
Virtual tickets are $15
FocusMusic encourages all attendees to protect themselves and others through vaccination and masks. If you are not feeling well, we ask you not to attend the event. (COVID policy updated 9/23/22)
Depending on payment method, you will receive 2-3 emails. Registration details will be EMAILED along with a receipt (and sometimes a third email from your payment service). You will receive an email with the subject line "Your ticket for..." For in-person events, there's no need to do anything further. Your name will be at the front desk! For virtual events there will be a link to click in this email, so please save it! If you do not receive that email - please check your spam folder. If you still cannot find details contacting tickets@focusmusic.org.
All sales are final. In the event of a cancellation, event tickets will be refunded or purchasers may offer the ticket price as a donation to the artist. In the event of a rescheduled event tickets may be refunded or transferred to the new event date. Please note there are NO refunds for virtual performances made inaccessible by audience / user-error. If you find that you cannot attend an event or webcast, please contact us in advance of the event to transfer your ticket to another upcoming FocusMusic event.
Sat 4/20 - James Keelaghan w Jillian Matundan (Charlottesville)
FocusMusic and Unity of Charlottesville present James Keelaghan.
2825 Hydraulic Cir
Charlottesville, VA 22901 | 7pm
Contemporary folk songs, at their very best, offer an insight into the hardships, attitudes, and resolve of characters and events that shape our day-to-day lives. You can dress these songs up in inspired arrangements and intricate instrumentation but, at their very essence, the archetypal folk song is all about stories. Stories and people. Something such compelling songwriters as Eric Bogle, Si Kahn, Ewan MacColl, and Stan Rogers … all understood and mined so effectively.
James Keelaghan, too, burrows into that same rich seam with equal ability and comparable conviction. To quote Eric Bibb, the award-winning American acoustic bluesman, after listening to Keelaghan perform: “[You’re] a joy to hear, just beautiful. Reminded me of the best of the best of another time – Liam Clancy, Tom Paxton etcetera.” Less colourful but more succinct, Dave Marsh, the eminent Rolling Stone critic, simply described Keelaghan as “Canada’s finest songwriter.”
Truly, throughout a career that now spans almost four decades, the Juno and Canadian Folk Music Award winner has created a repertoire of incalculable importance – a unique body of work, either inspired by or drawn from the folk tradition. Ten solo albums flush with enduring lyrical relevance. Take the beautiful but heartbreaking ballad, “Jenny Bryce,” for example. From any point of view, it’s indistinguishable from the numerous traditional tracks covered on his disc A Few Simple Verses.
What’s more, various other originals from the Keelaghan cannon must surely enter the domain of traditional folklore. Most notably, “Small Rebellion” (highlighting the 1931 slaughter of peaceful striking miners in Bienfait, SK); “Hillcrest Mine” (a prelude to the worst coal mining disaster in Canadian history); “Kiri’s Piano” (a triumph over adversity amidst the shameful, racist treatment of Japanese-Canadians during WW II); “Cold Missouri Waters” (a harrowing portrait of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in the mountains of Montana)
About Jillian Matundan:
Jillian Matundan is an award-winning, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter living in Northern Virginia. After a fifteen year hiatus from music, she ventured to local open mics in 2019 and has been on a tear ever since, winning multiple songwriting awards, playing numerous shows, and collaborating with musicians on stage and in the studio. She continues to win audiences with her deft and percussive guitar style, soothing vocals, and a warm, funny, unassuming stage presence. She released her debut EP, “Hangin' On”, in 2020 and released her first full-length, fully crowd-funded album, “Singing to the Moon”, in March 2024.
Sun 4/21 - James Keelaghan (Gaithersburg)
FocusMusic and WFMA present James Keelaghan.
Gaithersburg Arts Barn
311 Kent Square Rd, Gaithersburg, MD 20878 | 7.30pm | Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door | virtual tickets for this event are $25
Contemporary folk songs, at their very best, offer an insight into the hardships, attitudes, and resolve of characters and events that shape our day-to-day lives. You can dress these songs up in inspired arrangements and intricate instrumentation but, at their very essence, the archetypal folk song is all about stories. Stories and people. Something such compelling songwriters as Eric Bogle, Si Kahn, Ewan MacColl, and Stan Rogers … all understood and mined so effectively.
James Keelaghan, too, burrows into that same rich seam with equal ability and comparable conviction. To quote Eric Bibb, the award-winning American acoustic bluesman, after listening to Keelaghan perform: “[You’re] a joy to hear, just beautiful. Reminded me of the best of the best of another time – Liam Clancy, Tom Paxton etcetera.” Less colourful but more succinct, Dave Marsh, the eminent Rolling Stone critic, simply described Keelaghan as “Canada’s finest songwriter.”
Truly, throughout a career that now spans almost four decades, the Juno and Canadian Folk Music Award winner has created a repertoire of incalculable importance – a unique body of work, either inspired by or drawn from the folk tradition. Ten solo albums flush with enduring lyrical relevance. Take the beautiful but heartbreaking ballad, “Jenny Bryce,” for example. From any point of view, it’s indistinguishable from the numerous traditional tracks covered on his disc A Few Simple Verses.
What’s more, various other originals from the Keelaghan cannon must surely enter the domain of traditional folklore. Most notably, “Small Rebellion” (highlighting the 1931 slaughter of peaceful striking miners in Bienfait, SK); “Hillcrest Mine” (a prelude to the worst coal mining disaster in Canadian history); “Kiri’s Piano” (a triumph over adversity amidst the shameful, racist treatment of Japanese-Canadians during WW II); “Cold Missouri Waters” (a harrowing portrait of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in the mountains of Montana) …
James Keelaghan grew up in a bungalow in northwest Calgary, AB, with six siblings, an Irish father, and an English mum. His brother Bob would develop into a noteworthy guitarist with the excellent, but now defunct, Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir. From his father, Jim, James developed a love of history. The family record collection provided further inspiration. Traditional folk LPs by the likes of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Séan Ó Riada, and Harry Belafonte certainly caught young Keelaghan’s ear. He still cites Belafonte At Carnegie Hall as a recording that changed his life at age six!
In-person tickets purchased in advance are $25. All virtual tickets are also $25.
If available, in-person tickets may be purchased at the door for $30, starting at 7:00 PM.
WFMA and FocusMusic members will receive a 10% discount on advance ticket purchases (both in-person & virtual) and a $5 discount on tickets purchased at the door.
No tickets will be mailed. The list of all ticket purchasers will be at the door on the night of the show, starting at 7:00 PM.
All ticket purchasers (both in-person & virtual) will receive an email two days before the show with info about attending the concert in-person and instructions for viewing the live stream.
Sat 6/1 - Jesse Terry w Halley Neal (Sterling)
FocusMusic Presents Jesse Terry at Community Lutheran Church.
21014 Whitfield Place Sterling, VA 20165 | 7.30pm
"This is music to revel in, so just revel till the starlight fades."
- Nick West / RnR Magazine
Jesse Terry's seventh album, When We Wander, is the first he wrote since becoming a parent. So it's no surprise the family theme courses through many of its 12 songs. His music career has been a family project ever since he became a full-time touring artist a decade ago.
That was right around the time when Jesse met his wife Jess working on a cruise ship in the South Pacific. "As soon as we got back to the states, I proposed to her at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in July 2010 and we packed up the car for the first tour right after that. We've been touring together full-time ever since." Now with two-year-old Lily added to the clan, family is more important than ever to him, including the parental urge to love and protect. "If I were the moon, I’d light all of your back roads," he sings in "If I Were The Moon": "You wouldn’t need no headlights / I’d always be full."
The life of a touring family inspired the album's title track. "When we wander, when we wander / Don’t it feel like we’re finally found." But in the face of the pandemic, he has found that "wandering is not just a literal thing. We've followed our hearts with so many decisions in 2020-2021, and have found that there are many ways to wander and be free and brave."
One of those ways has been going virtual. He says that his livestream concerts have "become the highlight of my week and the thing that sustains us emotionally and financially. And an amazing community has sprung up from these concerts."
The stage had been Jesse's home for a decade. He plays around 150 shows a year, from Bonnaroo to the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the 30A Songwriters Festival to AmericanaFest. When the pandemic canceled concerts and delayed the album's release, he pivoted to performing online and found a strong new connection to his fans, who had helped fund his albums all along. "My musical tribe has always been there for me," he says with gratitude.
Though recorded in 2019, the songs off the new album click with fans online too. He and his band recorded When We Wander live in the studio, a first for his career. "I wanted to try that Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton, Neil Young approach to live recording, prioritizing emotion and raw performances over perfection. I loved that experience." Recorded live, the album resonates especially with the intimacy and community spirit of the online shows.
He also wrote all the music and lyrics this time, instead of working with collaborators, and took a very personal approach, including a look back. "In Spite of You" recalls his stay in a residential facility for behavior modification that traumatized him as a young teenager: "The sermons that you sold me all were fakes."
Yet he emerged to earn a degree from Berklee College of Music, net a five-year staff writer gig on Nashville's Music Row penning material for major TV networks, and win prestigious songwriting awards. And then to become the singer-songwriter his countless fans know today, who (in the words of Music News Nashville) "bring[s] to mind iconic artist/poets like Paul Simon and Jackson Browne... [with] a performance that touches the heart like only a whisper can."
Advance tickets $25 / day-of and door $30 (member / congregation as-applicable $25 at the door).
Virtual tickets are $15
FocusMusic encourages all attendees to protect themselves and others through vaccination and masks. If you are not feeling well, we ask you not to attend the event. (COVID policy updated 9/23/22)
Depending on payment method, you will receive 2-3 emails. Registration details will be EMAILED along with a receipt (and sometimes a third email from your payment service). You will receive an email with the subject line "Your ticket for..." For in-person events, there's no need to do anything further. Your name will be at the front desk! For virtual events there will be a link to click in this email, so please save it! If you do not receive that email - please check your spam folder. If you still cannot find details contacting tickets@focusmusic.org.
All sales are final. In the event of a cancellation, event tickets will be refunded or purchasers may offer the ticket price as a donation to the artist. In the event of a rescheduled event tickets may be refunded or transferred to the new event date. Please note there are NO refunds for virtual performances made inaccessible by audience / user-error. If you find that you cannot attend an event or webcast, please contact us in advance of the event to transfer your ticket to another upcoming FocusMusic event.
Events
Current COVID policy
Please note that FocusMusic's COVID policy may be updated without notice as conditions require, and may be further modified by the individual venues.
1/13/22
We request that all attendees be vaccinated and be prepared to show vaccination status for admission (or a negative COVID test dated within the past 72 hours). Additionally, we require that the audience and staff wear masks at all times inside the building unless actively eating or drinking. We thank you for complying with what we’ve determined to be best for our community.