jourdan thibodeaux/cedric watson/joel savoy
jourdan thibodeaux/cedric watson/joel savoy
Join us for a deep dive into Creole & Cajun culture, where music, history, language and ecology are so tightly interwoven that lines don’t exist—only textures. Featuring 3 of the brightest lights in a state bursting with talent, Jourdan, Cedric and Joel perform original and traditional music from the Acadiana region of Southwest Louisiana on fiddles, accordion and guitar. One of the most delightful aspects of songs sung in Cajun and Creole French is that you don’t have to speak the language to thoroughly lose yourself in music that’s made for dancing. It pairs well with good times of any sort. Yet, paradoxically, it is intensely serious music from a region that is literally losing land faster than anywhere in the world: 1 football field’s worth every hour.
Straight out of the blackjack boggy woods of Cypress Island, Louisiana, JOURDAN THIBODEAUX is one of only a handful of younger people speaking Cajun French. His soulful singing, fiddling and ever-growing repertoire of original Louisiana French songs are tinged with both classic and progressive elements.
Four-time Grammy-nominated fiddler, singer, accordionist & songwriter CEDRIC WATSON, widely acknowledged as one of the most important talents to emerge in Louisiana French music over the last decade, draws on an apparently bottomless repertoire of songs: forgotten Creole melodies, modern Cajun and Zydeco songs, occasional bluegrass and string band fiddle numbers. A prolific songwriter, his music channels his diverse African, French, Native American and Spanish ancestry.
JOEL SAVOY, founder of Louisiana-based Valcour Records, is a GRAMMY-winning recording engineer and producer. A versatile fiddler and guitarist who has played and taught music around the world for the past 20 years, he has worked with the best in southwest Louisiana as well as with folks like John Fogerty, Linda Ronstadt, Steve Earle, and T-Bone Burnett, although most often he’s seen with his brother Wilson and their parents in the Savoy Family Cajun Band. He is currently Artistic Director of the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes and a program manager for the National Council for Traditional Arts program National Treasures.
Performing
Friday and Saturday
Wintergrass is a production of Acoustic Sound, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. EIN: 91-2103544
all photos copyright Maria Camillo