Nora Brown with Stephanie Coleman + Dirk and Amelia Powell at The Iron Horse on Saturday, November 23 2024
Nora Brown started learning music at the age of 6 from the late Shlomo Pestcoe. From his tiny studio apartment in Brooklyn, Pestcoe instilled in her the belief that music is meant to be shared.
Nora plays traditional music with a focus on southern Appalachian banjo and guitar playing. Along with mentors in the noratheast like the late John Cohen she also has traveled and learned directly from master musicians including Alice Gerrard, George Gibson and the late Lee Sexton and Art Rosenbaum.
She has played numerous venues and festivals in the US and Europe including the Newport Folkfest, the Philadelphia Folkfest, the Trans-Pecos Festival of Love in Marfa Texas, and Folk Holidays in the Czech Republic. She has performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk, TED Salon, WNYC’s Dolly Parton’s America Podcast and an official showcase at the 2022 Americana Fest in Nashville.
Nora has been interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition, WBUR Here and Now and she’s been included on Bob Boilen’s All Songs Considered.
Since 2019 she has released 3 albums on Brooklyn’s own Jalopy Records Label and all records have charted on the Billboard Bluegrass Charts during the first week of release. The New Yorker called her most recent record Long Time To Be Gone – “A disarming collection of traditional laments and exquisite banjo instrumentals”.
Fretboard Journal called her 2nd album Sidetrack My Engine – “Some of the most interesting and haunting Traditional music we’ve heard… impossibly talented”. She has won numerous banjo and folk song competitions at various fiddlers conventions including the Clifftop Appalachian String Band Music Festival and The Grayson County Old- time and Bluegrass Fiddlers Convention.
Duo with Stephanie Coleman:
First brought together by Brooklyn’s tight-knit old-time music community in 2017, Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman share a rich musical partnership that belies their 20 year age difference. Stephanie is a master old-time fiddler, having recorded with and toured internationally over the last two decades with celebrated artists such as trailblazing all-women stringband Uncle Earl, Watchhouse’s Andrew Marlin, and clawhammer banjo virtuoso Adam Hurt. Nora and Stephanie recorded together on Nora’s debut album Cinnamon Tree in 2019, and have performed as a duo in the US and London including renowned festivals as the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Trans-Pecos Festival in Marfa, TX, Winnipeg Folk Fest, Edmonton Folk Fest, and the Roskilde Festival in Copenhagen. Most recently they preformed together as a duo on NPR’s Tiny Desk and have released a new duo EP called Lady of the Lake. The vinyl to be released at the end of December 2023.
Dirk Powell is well-known to UK audiences from his performances with Transatlantic Sessions, and also his work with artists such as Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Rhiannon Giddens, Eric Clapton, and many more. He is regarded as a champion of rural Americana, with a focus on the music of his Appalachian roots and his Cajun home, but has longstanding ties with the Celtic music world, as evidenced by his latest CD, “When I Wait For You”, which was released on Vertical Records and produced by Donald Shaw.
Dirk’s daughter Amelia grew up in the bayous of Louisiana, immersed in the musical culture of her grandfather, Cajun fiddle hero Dewey Balfa. Her driving guitar and soulful vocals, as both a lead and harmony singer, are in demand throughout Cajun country and beyond. She has toured internationally since her teenage years. Together, they play music of their Appalachian and Cajun heritage, write and craft original songs, and bring audiences the kind of soulful connection that comes from family playing together with humour, trust, and love.
