Pennwest Clarion Acoustic Music Weekend

February 9th and 10th, 2024

(All Free except for meals)

PennWest Clarion is hosting a Acoustic Music Weekend in the Gemmell Student Complex! This experience is free and open to everyone age 18 - infinity and beyond! All skill levels are welcome.

Please send questions to Brian Hoover:  bhoover@pennwest.edu  

CLICK HERe to register

***Check out the Schedule at the bottom of this page***

Our Hosts: Simple Gifts

Simple Gifts

Simple Gifts, an award-winning folk/world music ensemble, has performed traditional ethnic
music since 1989, currently performs 80-100 concerts per year and has released six albums. The
group has performed at arts centers, festivals, and schools throughout the mid-Atlantic region,
including the Smithsonian, National Theatre, Regina Quick Center, Longwood Gardens, Old
Songs Festival, Epworth Concert Series, Whitaker Center, Hoover Auditorium, Bethel Woods,
Barnard College, Freeman Stage, Philadelphia Folk Festival, and Riviera Theatre.

Simple Gifts' musical styles include Klezmer, Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Irish, Scottish,
Swedish, French, American, and Greek. Instrumentation includes two violins, mandolin,
hammered dulcimer, banjo, recorders and guitar, as well as some more unusual instruments like
the bowed psaltery, baritone fiddle, and doumbek. Simple Gifts' most recent recording, Crossing
Borders: Music of Many Lands, won a national award from Indie Acoustic Project, and their
preceding album, Time and Again, won a national award from Crossroads Music.

An important focus of Simple Gifts' work is education. Realizing that they're playing instruments
and genres that many in their audiences have never heard, they take seriously their role as
educators. Their concerts are interspersed with informational segments to help the audience
understand the music. Simple Gifts has presented workshops to every age from pre-school
through older adults. They are founders of and teachers at Folk College, an educational event for
amateur and professional folk musicians. In conjunction with the Huntingdon County Arts
Council, Simple Gifts has been involved in several projects to identify and preserve traditional
Pennsylvania music.

Simple Gifts was on the prestigious PennPAT (Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour) roster for
15 years and earned the distinction of being the most frequently requested artist on the roster.
PennPAT, which was discontinued several years ago, was a group of about 120 Pennsylvania
artists who were chosen through a competitive, juried process for a grant program funded by the
Heinz Foundation, William Penn Foundation, Pew Charitable Trust, and Pennsylvania Council on
the Arts.

 

***Made possible by the PA Sharp Grant, offered through PA Humanities.

Schedule of Events: