Catch an unusual performance this weekend of roots mountain ballads and tunes along with stories and an historic style of story-telling using a scrolling-storyboard made of fabric and paper, when Anna & Elizabeth perform Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. at The Landing at 68D Kentucky Drive.
Here’s what Anna and Elizabeth say about their work:
anna & elizabeth is a performance duo centered on the unique talents of Anna Roberts-Gevalt (fiddle, banjo, guitar and harmonies) and Elizabeth LaPrelle (ballads, banjo) and on their shared desire to inspire people with the beautiful soul of Appalachian roots music. Master musicians steeped in knowledge of mountain tunes, ballads and stories, the pair are gifted storytellers and visual artists reviving the lost art of “crankies,” scrolling storyboards made of sewn fabric or cut paper.
Begun with the simple goal of bringing ballads to the small nooks and crannies of rural Virginia where they lived, the project rapidly grew, bringing the gals and their stories to stages throughout the U.S., festivals in Seattle, Austin, Chicago and Brooklyn, The High Museum of Modern Art in Atlanta, a music festival in Uzbekistan, artist residencies at universities, and summer traditional music schools. Their travels have led to collaborations, too, with Eamon O’Leary (The Alt w/John Doyle, Nuala Kennedy), Jefferson Hamer (of Child Ballads w/Anais Mitchell), Tim Eriksen, Wayne Henderson, Riley Baugus, and Alice Gerrard. The two are recording a quartet EP with the Murphy Beds (O’Leary, Hamer) this winter.
Elizabeth was the first recipient of the Henry Reed Award from the Library of Congress at age 16; won the 2012 Mike Seeger Award at Folk Alliance International; has released 3 solo ballad albums; and was called “quite simply the best young appalachian ballad singer to emerge in recent memory” by fRoots Magazine.
Anna is a blue-ribbon fiddler and banjo player (West Virginia State Folk Festival; Kentucky Fiddle Contest, Morehead); the artistic director of East Kentucky’s traditional music institute, the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School; a 2014 fellow for OneBeat, a State Department sponsored international music residency; and an in-demand music video artist, most recently for songwriters Kristin Andreassen and Rachel Ries.
They invite audiences to get close, offering intimate and breathtaking multi-media shows unlike anything seen or heard. “We believe in the power of stories—from family jokes to ancient ballads. What keeps us going is this process of exploring how the old stories are still magical, after all these years.”
Here’s a clip of Anna and Elizabeth singing Old Kimball:
And a video showing the duo’s scrolling-storyboard “crankies”:
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