Come hear great performances by four of Rochester's folk music pioneers who helped grow our region's deep appreciation for traditional music and dance!

The next program in a new concert series entitled “Rochester Folkus” featuring Folk, Traditional, Old-Time, Bluegrass, and other acoustic music will be held on May 9 at the Downstairs Cabaret Theatre, 20 Windsor Street, Rochester, NY. All concerts begin at 7 pm and occur on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of every month (with occasional exceptions). Reservations are accepted (but not required) and can be made by calling 585-325-4370. For more information go to https://www.facebook.com/Roche... or www.DownstairsCabaret.com. Admission is $10.

Allen Hopkins will host a special Rochester Folkus event celebrating four individuals who have played an important role in the development of the Rochester folk music scene over the last half century. “Rochester Roots” performers will include:

Mitzie Collins is a singer, collector and presenter of traditional music; she has been a radio host, a record company owner, a world-wide ambassador of the hammered dulcimer, and an organizer of community musical education through the Eastman School of Music.  Mitzie has released over a dozen recordings of instrumental music, featuring her dulcimer, and also other traditional musicians from the Rochester area; styles have ranged from Christmas carols, Irish dance tunes, New York State fiddling, to “world music” featuring Middle Eastern instruments combined with Caribbean steel drumming, and Mitzie’s dulcimer.  Currently she performs as a soloist, with other musical friends in a variety of ensembles, and as leader of the Striking Strings hammered dulcimer orchestra.

Jim KImball, Lecturer in Music at SUNY Geneseo, is a scholar of American musical traditions, especially the fiddle and dance music of the Northeast US.  Outside the classroom, where he teaches everything from ethnomusicology to American and world popular music, Jim is a multi-instrumentalist on strings and winds, a noted dance caller, and organizer of the Geneseo String Band, combining college and community musicians to play traditional dance tunes.  For decades Jim and his band have hosted regular square dances at the college, and his students have become award-winning composers, professional touring acoustic musicians, and preservers of traditional music and folk arts.

Ted McGraw recently concluded 40 years of broadcasting his Irish Party House radio show on WGMC and WRUR, but has continued as a central figure in our thriving Irish music scene.  Expert on diatonic accordion and Anglo concertina, Ted is a collector and archivist of Irish music in America, with over 10 thousand books, recordings, and music sheets in his personal library, and a frequent and welcome participant in Rochester’s Irish sessions.  Ted performed for years in the Blackthorn Ceilidh Band; he’s a member of the  Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eirann Irish cultural organization’s Hall of Fame, and a frequent contributor to folklore conferences and publications.

Bob Olyslager is a bluegrass stalwart, expert on banjo, mandolin and guitar.  Starting out in rock bands 50-plus years ago, Bob began singing Carter Family and Ian & Sylvia songs with his wife Karen, and played banjo in the Flower City Ramblers, an eclectic ’70’s bluegrass band with Rochester Folkus host Allen Hopkins on mandolin.  He’s been continuously involved in bluegrass for over 45 years, currently playing mandolin to two bands, Blue Ridge Country Ramblers and Group Therapy.  Bob teaches bluegrass instrument techniques from his home studio, anchors local jams and workshops, and spends much of his summer pickin’ at regional bluegrass festivals.  He is also co-founder and first president of Rochester’s Golden Link Folk Singing Society.

As usual, free parking is available right behind the building (ignore the $5 sign).