Internationally award-winning Bluegrass, Americana, and folk musicians Hanneke Cassel, Mike Block, and Christopher Lewis – known as The Hanneke Cassel Trio – will arrive in Vero Beach on Monday, March 16, for a concert at First Presbyterian Church. The concert will take place at 7 p.m. in the sanctuary, located at 520 Royal Palm Boulevard. Admission is free; a $10 donation is suggested.
Effervescent and engaging, Boston-based fiddler Hanneke Cassel is a performer, teacher and composer whose career spans over two decades. She has graced stages across North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Her style fuses different influences from the Isle of Skye and Cape Breton Island with Americana grooves and musical innovations, creating a cutting-edge acoustic sound that retains the integrity and spirit of the Scottish tradition. Hanneke’s music is a blend of the contemporary and traditional, described by the Boston Globe as “exuberant and rhythmic, somehow wild and innocent, delivered with captivating melodic clarity and an irresistible playfulness.”
Hanneke Cassel’s new release Trip to Walden Pond (April 2017) features traditional Scottish and Cape Breton tunes and seventeen new pieces composed in the Scottish idiom. While her lively style is very much evident, this new album carries a deep, soulful sound with songs of celebration and farewell. Produced by Finnish musician Antti Järvelä (FRIGG, JPP, Baltic Crossing), the album showcases long-time musical collaborators cellist Mike Block, guitarists Keith Murphy and Christopher Lewis, fiddler/violist Jeremy Kittel, and pianist Dave Wiesler. Antti Järvelä contributes guitar and piano to a couple of tracks and piper Samppa Saarinen is featured on the uilleann pipes. Trip to Walden Pond, similar to Hanneke’s five previous albums, offers mellifluous arrangements of traditional fiddle music and original tunes that evoke humor and heart. This latest album also includes several compositions penned by Hanneke as commissions to benefit Many Hopes, a children’s education nonprofit based in Kenya that she avidly supports.
The Hanneke Cassel Trio features Mike Block on cello/vocals and Christopher Lewis on guitar/vocals. Mike Block is a pioneering multi-style cellist, singer, composer, and educator. Hailed by Yo-Yo Ma as the “ideal musician of the 21st-Century”, Mike is part of the Grammy-award winning Silk Road Ensemble, a graduate of the Juilliard School, and an Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music. Canadian native Christopher Lewis provides the driving guitar sound in the band. A Berklee College of Music alum, Christopher has been involved with album production and performance in the Boston indie rock scene and is a regular part of Boston’s Park Street Church Sunday Night worship team.
For more information, please contact Dr. Jacob Craig, Director of Music and Arts at First Presbyterian, at (772) 562-9088 or jacobcraig@firstpresvero.org.