The Umbrella Arts Center is excited to expand The Umbrella Concert Series to include two casual and intimate shows spotlighting some of your future-favorite musical acts who are up-and-coming through the Salt Lick Incubator program.
FEATURING
Tonina Chance Emerson Micah Edwards
Founded in 2022 by this year’s Elizabeth Cochary Gross Stewardship of the Arts recipient, Roger Brown, the nonprofit Salt Lick Incubator is reshaping the landscape for artists by providing support, grants, essential career guidance, and exposure to new audiences through such vehicles as WERS Radio’s Salt Lick Sessions and the Salt Lick YouTube channel. Led by an illustrious artist advisory board including T Bone Burnett, Jon Batiste, Patrice Rushen and more, its unwavering commitment to fostering diverse, emerging musicians is a testament to its belief in the transformative power of music.
Josh Ritter is a renowned singer, songwriter, musician, artist and best-selling author. One of today’s most thoughtful and prolific voices, he has released eleven studio albums including 2019’s widely acclaimed, Fever Breaks, of which NPR Music praised, “He remains a hydrant of ideas while embodying an endless capacity for empathy and indignation, often within a single song.”
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. Nora is a banjo player, and has released 4 albums on Brooklyn based Jalopy Records. She has performed across the US, Europe and Japan including NPR’s Tiny Desk and TED EDU. 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.
as she enters her third decade as a songwriter and performer, she continues to reaffirm her status as a vital voice in music.
“…extraordinary songs, mesmerising guitar playing, and a voice that goes effortlessly from bruise-tender to scar-hard in a matter of minutes… her lyrics are crafted and clever, full of subtlety and polished phrases…With delicious sarcasm and acerbic stories, she held the audience spellbound… her songs are so personal to her that they speak to everyone who listens.” – The Guardian
Shawn Colvin stopped the industry in its tracks with her arresting 1989 debut, Steady On. The following spring, Colvin took home the GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, establishing herself as a mainstay in the singer-songwriter genre. In the ensuing 30 years, Colvin has won three GRAMMY Awards, released thirteen superlative albums, written a critically acclaimed memoir, maintained a non-stop national and international touring schedule, appeared on countless television and radio programs, had her songs featured in major motion pictures and created a remarkable canon of work.
Colvin triumphed at the 1998 GRAMMY Awards, winning both Record and Song of the Year for the Top 10 hit “Sunny Came Home,” from the platinum-selling album A Few Small Repairs.
Tom Rush: From his early days at Club 47, the Cambridge coffeehouse that also gave Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Judy Collins their start back in the 1960's, through 14 albums, to his sold out Club 47® concert series which has filled the likes of Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, Tom's knack for finding wonderful songs, writing his own and championing emerging artists has made him a legend.
His music includes healthy doses of both folk and blues influences. He also was the first major artist to record the songs of a then-unknown Joni Mitchell, and also recorded a number of songs from such emerging singer/songwriters of the time as Jackson Browne, Eric von Schmidt, James Taylor and Eric Kaz.