Saturday, 0, , 12:00 am (doors open at 7:00 pm)Thomas Maupin, Daniel Rothwell & CO., Rafe & Clelia Stefanini, the Cheap Suit Serenaders
$16.50 advance / $18.50 at doorPurchase tickets online
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Come early for jamming (free admission) hosted by Harry & Cindy Liedstrand
Banging on the banjo, sawing on the fiddle, and clogging on the dance floor are among the Appalachian traditions that the 10th annual Berkeley Old Time Music Convention will be celebrating from September 12-16, at locations all over town. This five-day festival offers concerts, square dancing, a string band contest, workshops, and activities especially for kids and families, all in intimate settings where the line between audience and performer is as thin as a guitar pick. Participants travel from across America for the chance to hang out, dance, and pick and sing alongside of some of the top musicians and dancers in the old time fiddle and banjo world.
The legendary Tennessee buckdancer Thomas Maupin and his group will be
returning this year. Festival director Suzy Thompson says, "Thomas has
that something extra found in all truly great dancers, where even small
movements are invested with deeper meaning." Buckdancing, or
flatfooting, is a fluid, loose-limbed style of percussive dance that is
an ancestor of clogging and tap dance. Thomas, now 74, grew up on a
Tennessee farm and put in 40 years as a factory worker. He learned
buckdancing from his grandmother and says that he has her timing but
with flourishes of his own. He'll be dancing along with his grandson
Daniel Rothwell, an electrifying performer who tells countrified jokes
and stories and hollers out old time favorites like "Good Old Mountain
Dew." Also performing with the group will be 2012 World Champion
Buckdancer Jay Bland, who apprenticed with Thomas.
Father-daughter duo Rafe and Clelia Stefanini are among the elite tier
of virtuoso fiddlers. Both have won ribbons at Clifftop, old time
music’s biggest and most prestigious contest. Rafe grew up in Italy,
but fell in love with old time music and moved to America in 1983.
Clelia learned the fiddle from her father and has established herself at
age 22 as one of the strongest young fiddlers in the country. Their
music is firmly grounded in tradition, with a repertoire that includes
many fiddle and banjo tunes so challenging that they are rarely played
today.
Wearing period threads and playing vintage instruments, the Cheap Suit
Serenaders serve up a giddy blend of up-tempo Hawaiian stomps, ragtime,
Italian polkas, and more, as they recreate the music of the golden age
of jazz. In the 1970s, when co-founder R. Crumb was still an active
member of the band, they issued three 78-rpm, 10-inch discs, now coveted
collectors items, just like the discs they listened to and loved. With
Bob Armstrong, Al Dodge, Rick Elmore, Tony Marcus, and (we hope) Terry Zwigoff
performing on ukuleles, Hawaiian steel guitars, fiddles, cellos, banjos,
mandolins, accordions, and musical saws, the band will bring alive
great music and great times.
Come early for jamming (free admission) hosted by Harry & Cindy Liedstrand
The legendary Tennessee buckdancer Thomas Maupin and his group will be
returning this year. Festival director Suzy Thompson says, "Thomas has
that something extra found in all truly great dancers, where even small
movements are invested with deeper meaning." Buckdancing, or
flatfooting, is a fluid, loose-limbed style of percussive dance that is
an ancestor of clogging and tap dance. Thomas, now 74, grew up on a
Tennessee farm and put in 40 years as a factory worker. He learned
buckdancing from his grandmother and says that he has her timing but
with flourishes of his own. He'll be dancing along with his grandson
Daniel Rothwell, an electrifying performer who tells countrified jokes
and stories and hollers out old time favorites like "Good Old Mountain
Dew." Also performing with the group will be 2012 World Champion
Buckdancer Jay Bland, who apprenticed with Thomas. 
