Colorscape announces festival lineup

NORWICH – You don’t have to travel far for some great, free musical entertainment, especially if you make plans to attend this year’s 14th Annual Colorscape Chenango Arts Festival on Saturday, Sept. 6 and Sunday, Sept. 7.

The musical lineup is complete and includes a stunning mix of folk, jazz, bluegrass, a cappella, rock n’ roll, blues, and acoustical singer-songwriters in a free outdoor festival located in East and West Parks in downtown Norwich. The lineup of performers gracing the NBT Main Stage includes:

SATURDAY

10 a.m. Ron Palmer & Mark Sherwood

11 a.m. Maura Kennedy (solo)

11:30 a.m.Pete Kennedy (solo)

Noon The Kennedys

1 p.m. Ellis Paul

2 p.m. Leni Stern & “The African Project”

3:30 p.m. Dennis Gruenling & Steve Guyger with “The Little Walter Tribute”

5 p.m. Gandalf Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams

SUNDAY

11 a.m. Gospel Show with various performers

Noon Brooks Williams

1 p.m. The Kennedys

2 p.m. Vance Gilbert

3 p.m. The Angel Band

4 p.m. Gandalf Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams

The lineup of musicians is arranged by Ken Millet, owner of the well-renown Night Eagle Café located at 200 State Street in Binghamton. The caliber of performers at this year’s Colorscape is truly impressive, and you get to see them all for free.

Returning to Colorscape for the fifth year, Gandalf Murphy & The Slambovian Circus of Dreams brings music that can “heal what ails ya.” They fumble onto stage, talk freely to the audience as if they knew you forever, tell you their names (“just so you know who’s playin’ for ya”) and then proceed to take you away. The music is simple and relatively straight forward, very familiar yet strangely unique and transporting. These good thieves steal freely from the music they love, all kinds of music.

Angel Band makes big noise. Loud noise. Boisterous, sad, sweet, goofy, glorious and angelic. Any which way you look at it this stuff gets your attention. Whether it’s the crazy tight three part harmony, the killer backup playing, the stories, the passion or the compassion, it gets your attention. The core of the band is held by the three singers: Nancy Josephson, Jen Schonwald and Kathleen Weber. All are experienced on lead and backup vocals. The love of the sound that three female voices make together is at the center of this group. The chord rules the day. Both mystical and elemental when the three hit “it” the hair on the back of your neck’s gonna stand up.

Vance Gilbert burst onto the singer/songwriter scene in the early 90’s when the buzz started spreading in the folk clubs of Boston about an ex-jazz singer who was knocking ‘em dead at open mikes. The word spread of this Philadelphia-area born and raised performer to New York, and then soon after Gilbert took audiences across the country by storm. At the heart of everything Vance Gilbert does there are the twin towers of his compelling artistry – his voice and his guitar.