Celebrating American “Heart Songs” and Dance Tunes

Ken Burns’ and Bare Necessities’ pianist Jacqueline Schwab in Concert!

Jacqueline will perform a “melting pot” of vintage American music, coming from immigrant cultures and our common heritage–Stephen Foster and Civil War tunes, Victorian dance tunes, Scots and Irish fiddle tunes and airs, spirituals, ragtime, Latin waltzes, Tin Pan Alley, blues, and more.

Suggested donation of $15 – All payment will be handled when you arrive.

The concert will run approximately 2 hours, with an intermission for drinks and snacks.

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    Waiting list rules: people will be contacted in the order they added to the waiting list if seats come available.

    About Jacqueline Schwab

    Pianist Jacqueline Schwab’s signature style—in turns flowing, percussive, classical, folksy, spare, embellished, meditative, passionate, elegiac and sprightly—is hard to categorize but easy to recognize. Drawing on “the jazz/classical improvisational spirit of Keith Jarrett and the touch of George Winston ….” (New England Folk Almanac), Jacqueline spins musical stories in her arrangements of vintage tunes from America and beyond. She aims to build bridges connecting listeners to the bountiful reservoir of a shared American, multicultural musical heritage.

    Her style evokes in listeners deep feelings and memories from the past. Documentary film maker Ken Burns wrote: “Jacqueline Schwab brings more feeling and intensity to music than anyone I know. Her playing is insistent, physical, heartfelt and … unusually moving.” Her distinctive playing infuses the sound tracks of Burns’ Grammy-winning Civil War, Baseball, Lewis and Clark, Mark Twain, The War, The National Parks, among others. Critic Scott Alarik wrote that she has “… an uncanny sensitivity to the moods and proprieties from other eras.” One listener wrote: “Your music, the touch you have, entwines the heart.”

    In addition to her work on the Burns documentaries, she has also performed on The Irish in America, Ric Burns’ New York: A Documentary Film and others and has been composer for Mary Cassatt—A Brush with Independence and Simple Servants—The Story of the Lewis County Mennonites. She has performed at the White House for President Clinton, and, with Scottish singer Jean Redpath, on public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion and on CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman. She has four solo recordings: Mad Robin (“an orchestra at her fingertips”—Sing Out! Magazine), Down Came an Angel (“gorgeous”—Boston Globe), Mark Twain’s America (“magical”—The Acoustic Garden Online Magazine), and True Blue Waltz (“three different composers at work”). Jacqueline graduated from the New England Conservatory in Boston, majoring in piano improvisation. She has long played for dancing with the Bare Necessities English quartet, whose flowing, group improvisational style, eighteen recordings, and nationwide performances and workshops have inspired new generations of dance musicians. She performs solo and collaborative concerts, records, teaches and plays for dancing; she has performed in over forty US states and logs many miles and hours on the road. She lives on Cape Cod.