Voice Works at Centrum

What a Week of Singing

What a week indeed. We'll be posting photos from 2010 Voiceworks soon, but a big thank you to the terrific staff, participants, and audience members who literally made Fort Worden sing this past week. We hope you had as much fun as we did!

Swing Dance Tonight at Centrum

Hope you had as much fun as we did at Wednesday's Honky-Tonk Night!

It's Friday, and we're "swinging" into gear with Bruce and Pammie Forman - AKA "Cow Bop." They will be joined by Voiceworks faculty all-stars for a night of sizzling swing dance tunes.

We'll start things off at 7:30pm, and tickets at the door will be $10. To learn more, visit our performance preview for this show.

And don't forget to join us at Fort Worden's Balloon Hangar on Saturday, for our afternoon-long mainstage show at McCurdy Pavilion. A ton of great singing to be heard.

One Down, Two to Go

Thanks to everyone who came out for some serious honky-tonk at Voiceworks--that was a lot of fun!

A reminder that we have a Swing Dance party happening on Friday night in Building 204, and then the big Pavilion show on Saturday afternoon. Weather looks to be clearing, so it's entirely possible that those enormous balloon hangar doors at McCurdy Pavilion will be open for the show.

Tickets for these shows are available online, or by calling 800-746-1982.

Honky-Tonk Night Tonight at Centrum

Building 204 at Fort Worden turns into Honky-Tonk Central tonight, as Voiceworks welcomes Nadine Landry and the Black Pot Cookers, along with Wylie (Gustafson) and Wild West, for a night of great music in Port Townsend.

The fun begins at 7:30pm, and tickets at the door are $10 until we're sold out.

For more information, check out our performance preview for this show.

Voiceworks July 3 Pavilion Performance Preview

Voiceworks' primary concert experience takes place on Saturday, July 3 at McCurdy Pavilion at Fort Worden State Park. The soaring structure, built in the early part of the 20th century to house dirigibles, has been transformed into one of the West's most distinctive performance venues.

And it is simply a stunning place to hear people sing. 

Tickets for Saturday's McCurdy Pavilion show, as well as all other Voiceworks performances, are available online, or by calling 800-746-1982.

Saturday, July 3
Mountain, Roots & Bluegrass
McCurdy Pavilion | 1:30 pm | $16/$20/$32

• Elizabeth LaPrelle: Applachian-style Mountain Vocals
  
• Pharis and Jason Romero: Old Time Songs from Vancouver Island
  
• Blue Spruce with Jenny Lester: Canadian Bluegrass
  
• The Kings of Mongrel Folk (Mark Graham and Orville Johnson): Acclaimed Songwriter & Dobro Virtuoso
  
• Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum: Bluegrass Female Vocalist of the Year with Ace Mandolinist

Elizabeth LaPrelle
Twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth LaPrelle is exceptional in her devotion to and mastery of the ancient and deep art of Appalachian unaccompanied singing. She is renowned for her piercingly authentic mountain style and the devotion and honesty with which she approaches the poetry of the old songs. She sings with a sense of conviction, honor, honesty and an emotional force that evokes the great Appalachian ballad singers of generations past.

Pharis and Jason Romero
Pharis Romero is an outstanding singer, songwriter, rhythm guitar player, and teacher, and a respected figure in West Coast acoustic music circles. She is a prolific songwriter, influenced by early traditional music, but looking to her Canadian home for songs about daily living – work, divorce, drug addiction, love and death. She currently plays with old time trio The Haints, and directs vocal and band workshops and the Old Time Vocal Choir in her home of Cobble Hill, BC. 

Blue Spruce with Jenny Lester
Jenny Lester's original songs, carefully crafted in the bluegrass convention, display a contemporary freshness and vitality that breathes new life into the fabled "high lonesome" sound. She is a veteran stage performer, beginning on the fiddle at age eight with her family's Driftwood Canyon Family Band out of Smithers, B.C. Now into 27 years touring the world with different configurations of bands, Jenny most recently toured with the Yukon-based bluegrass band, Hungry Hill.

Mark Graham and Orville Johnson
Songwriter Mark Graham's harmonica virtuosity on Irish and American fiddle tunes and his rich, woody sound on clarinet are well-known to Northwest acoustic music mavens. His sardonic skewering of contemporary life in such songs as "I Can See Your Aura and It's Ugly" and "Zen Gospel Singing," and his lampoons of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, sex change operations, the bible, Oedipus Rex, Oral Roberts, and dinosaurs have become immortal to singer-songwriters in the same way that fervent “Repo Man” followers gave rise to the term “cult classic.”

Orville Johnson, an instrumental gunslinger whom the Seattle Times describes as "the player's player," has a gift of finding the secret ingredient that makes a song sound letter-perfect, whether it's an R & B tune from New Orleans, a country blues or a jazzy ballad. guitar, dobro, and quavering, honeyed vocals have seasoned more than a hundred recordings, soundtracks and countless TV and radio commercials. He’s an extraordinary and magnificent musician, with interests and passions and contributions simply too wide to be categorized by marketing bins.

Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum
Though Laurie Lewis has won a Grammy and has twice been named Bluegrass Female Vocalist of the Year, you'll soon realize this soft-spoken, sweet-singing California fiddler, singer and songwriter is something very special. Since joining forces with Laurie more than 20 years ago, Tom's versatility and diverse musical influences come to the fore every time they play. He mostly plays mandolin, but is also an accomplished fiddle, mandola, and guitar player. And he sings, the ideal harmony partner for Laurie, as demonstrated on "The Oak and the Laurel," their Grammy-nominated album of duets.

Voiceworks July 2 Swing Dance Preview

Part of the 2010 Voiceworks gathering, on Friday, July 2, 2010, Centrum transforms Building 204 at historic Fort Worden State Park into Swing Dance Central. The terrific wooden floors on the second floor make it a fun dancing venue.

Friday, July 2
Swing Dance
Building 204 | 7:30 pm | $10

• Pammy and Bruce Forman with the Boppers

Tickets for the Friday night show, as well as Wednesday night's Honky-Tonk night and Saturday's McCurdy Pavilion show are available online.

Pammy and Bruce Forman are the dynamic husband and wife duo at the heart of Cow Bop, a Western bebop band mixing swingin' grooves, thrilling riffs, sweet and hot vocals, and acoustic western sensibilities.

Pammy won her first talent show singing at age 6 and has worked with many bands and fabulous musicians including Mood Indigo, The Martini Brothers Big Band, Sweet Thursday Jazz Band, Dan Hicks, and Howard Alden.

Bruce is a renowned jazz guitarist, whose guitar style has been an important part of international jazz for more than two decades. He has been featured as leader as well as sideman at most of the prestigious festivals and concert venues throughout the world. His numerous recording and performing credits include the likes of Bobby Hutcherson, Ray Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Joe Henderson, and Barney Kessel.

Together, these two are a lot of fun, and they'll joined by the all-star Voiceworks faculty for a swing dance to remember.

Watch this video of Cow Bop playing the Cow Cow Boogie (if you watch below, be sure to select 480p for best picture).