FARMINGTON – On Thursday, June 22, Old South Church welcomes Owen Kennedy and Ethan Stokes Tischler for a return performance. Kennedy and Tischler opened for Coig in December 2022. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. Concert begins at 7 p.m. Admission: Adults $20, Seniors and Students $15. Tickets can be reserved by calling 207-491-5919 or available at the door.
Residing with his family in Winthrop, Maine, Kennedy is an eighteen-year-old fiddler whose love of traditional music and enthusiasm for performing has captivated audiences from San Diego to the Shetland Islands and all-over New England. Kennedy is the 2022 New England Regional Open Scottish Fiddle Champion, the 2021 Junior US National Scottish Fiddle Champion, and winner of the 2021 Young Stars of Maine “Glenn Jenks Future in Music” prize. He was selected for Best of All Things Irish from the Maine Irish Heritage Center and received a Passim Iguana Music Fund Grant for work on his debut album, “Oh When: Now”, which is out… now!
As an emerging musician rooted in the Maine Maritime music tradition and exploring the music of Scotland, “Oh When: Now” features the tunes Owen has loved for years as well as newer favorites from Scotland, Cape Breton, and Shetland. The album is a musical snapshot of the places Kennedy has visited and the musicians he’s played with and learned from. Many talented Maine folks were part of this project: it was recorded with Owen Marshall, mixed by Noah Fishman, mastered by Lincoln Clapp, with album design by Elsie Gawler and duplication from Crooked Cove.
Kennedy performs in duos with both Seán Heely and Tischler, and in various groups including the Pineland Fiddlers, the Young Tradition Youth Commission, and as a Youth Artist Leader in Vermont’s Young Tradition Touring Group. Kennedy has shared the stage with Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy, Genticorum, Claude Méthé, Pete Sutherland & Oliver Scanlon, Andrea Beaton & Troy MacGillivray, and Owen Marshall. Kennedy is also wrapping up a solo project, 50 Fiddlers from 50 States, before heading up to Cape Breton to attend the Beinn Mhàbu Gaelic Foundations: Living Cultures program for his first year of university in the fall of 2023. Kennedy was recently featured on WCSH Channel 6 207 show with Seán Heely.
Tischler is a Maine-based musician/educator with roots in the Champlain Valley of Vermont. For the last many years, he’s been teaching, performing, and recording music, mainly in Burlington, Vermont and Mid-Coast Maine. Alongside his own solo projects, he delights in playing with Elsie Gawler as Elsie & Ethan, and with the Gawler Sisters and Gawler Family as a whole. As a teacher, he has worked in groups and one-on-one with students in Vermont and Maine, in the Music for Sprouts and Village School programs at Bread & Butter Farm, and the Belfast Adventure Education Program and Sweetland School here in Mid-Coast. He appreciates working with music learners of all ages, and strives to pass along key foundations and theoretical concepts in music alongside a genuine joy and lightness in music-making as a whole.
On the performance side of things, he feels fortunate to have played alongside numerous wonderful musicians in the Burlington area, and Maine. Generally, he focuses on acoustic guitar and vocals, but has been known to pick up the fiddle, banjo, and electric guitar as well. Songcraft is at the heart – the magical blend of melody, harmony and poetry that pulls the song together. Look to the album Across the Waking Skies for another batch of original Tischler tunes. As a budding sound engineer, he’s been fortunate to have had several opportunities to record the Gawler Family Band for music festivals around the Northeast, Bennett Konesni and the Worksong Quartet for Sea Shanty workshops in Sweden, the Pineland Fiddlers for their forthcoming album, and his album Across the Waking Skies this last year. Tischler has run live sound in Mid-Coast for the Bagaduce Music Library in Blue Hill, Belfast Flying Shoes, and the Mid-Coast Reparations Collective. Most of all, he believes in the power of music to bring us together and enrich our lives, no matter when and how we engage with it.
For more information on Owen Kennedy, visit www.fiddlerokennedy.com, and for Ethan Stokes Tischler, visit www.elsieandethan.com.
