China Folk House is excited to invite back “From China to Appalachia” for a unique fusion of folk music in the perfect setting. Grammy Award winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer will join yangqin virtuoso and CFH Friend Chao Tian for an afternoon of amazing musical creativity! After sponsoring the trio at Watermelon Picker’s Fest this September, we will welcome the group back to the China Folk House this October 25th for the second year in a row! For $50 join us for a wonderful opportunity to make people-to-people connections, experience folk culture and participate in a tour, barbeque, and concert. At $25 Students and Teachers can get a meal ticket with free concert admission. Register by clicking the button below!
Thank you to Mid-Atlantic Arts for their support of this program!
12-2
Lunch and House Tours
2-4
Concert
“They are incredibly talented musicians that are just fun to watch.”
— Michelle Reiser-Memmer, Hamilton College Performing Arts
The group’s repertoire includes traditional Chinese and Appalachian music as well as contemporary and traditional music from around the world. Unusual combinations explore new arrangements to old music, such as “Dark Eyes.” Ukulele, yangqin and guitar create a new pallet for this Russian folk song turned jazz manouche tune. Cathy & Marcy join Chao in singing a Chinese lullaby, “Nani Wan” and Chao easily adds her love of American Old-Time music to fiddle tunes and songs.
From China to Appalachia was borne of a friendship and mutual love of musical exploration experienced in jam sessions that inspired a show speaking to the power of music to connect cultures. On their own, they have performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on PBS, and National Public Radio. Cathy & Marcy are master musicians with a career spanning 40 years. Their superb harmonies are backed by instrumental virtuosity on the guitar, five-string banjo, ukulele, mandolin, cello-banjo, and more. They have performed at hundreds of bluegrass and folk festivals and taught at close to 100 music camps worldwide.
Classically trained since the age of five, Chao Tian spent years working as an instructor and the director of the Arts Education Center at Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU). She is a founding member of BLCU Arts College’s music department and was appointed as an officer of the International Culture Exchange Program in 2019. Chao has performed in over 30 different countries and regions across the globe and collaborated with numerous talented musicians in many unprecedented projects. In 2015, she was accepted into the prestigious Artist in Residence program at the Music Center at Strathmore, where she met Cathy Fink. Cathy has served as a mentor-in-residence in that program for nineteen years.