Two more artists scheduled to appear in
Sound Effects: Building Musical Instruments are Ohioans Paul Henry and Alexander Fedoriouk. Both strive to put their own signature on the instruments they make. Meet them and see their work on
Saturday and Sunday at the Cityfolk Festival.
A native of Jamestown, New York, who has lived in Centerville for several years, violin and guitar builder
Paul Henry makes some of the most visually arresting instruments you will ever see. Henry’s epiphany came when he realized that using the “correct” woods was less important to the construction of a great instrument than were design and the way in which woods work together acoustically. Thus freed from traditional dogma, Henry (doing business as
Bluejay Fiddles) uses such non-standard woods as poplar, pine, purple heart hardwood, cherry, butternut and fir in his guitars and violins, striving for beauty as well as tone. Henry has a fondness for using salvaged wood for instruments and has used wood from old barns, churches, packing crates, houses and even downed branches. One of Henry’s instruments, the
Rike Fiddle, was made from wood he salvaged from the demolition of Rike’s Department Store in downtown Dayton; the fiddle is currently displayed at the Schuster Center, which occupies the old Rike’s location.
was born in Kolomyia, Ukraine, and began playing the
cimbalom (a member of the hammered dulcimer family) at the age of seven. The
cimbalom, which looks something like a piano without a top or keyboard, consists of a wooden trapezoidal box with metal strings stretched across the instrument’s top; the instrument rests on four ornately carved legs and is generally played in a sitting position. Like the hammered dulcimer, it is played by striking the strings with two wooden “beaters.” Widely popular throughout Eastern Europe, the
cimbalom is a fully chromatic instrument, with a pitch range of four octaves. Also an award-winning performing musician, Fedoriouk is a member of
Harmonia, a seven-member band from Cleveland that specializes in the traditional folk music of Eastern Europe. Fedoriouk is also a highly skilled player of the
nai, the Ukrainian version of the panpipe, and has recorded on that instrument with jazz flutist Herbie Mann and John Cale of the Velvet Underground.
The Cincinnati- based Latin music ensemble Son del Caribe has earned a solid reputation among both dancers and listeners as the top salsa band in Ohio, with an exciting and very danceable pan-Caribbean and pan-American sound that includes not only salsa but also such styles of Latin dance music as merengue, cumbia, son, bomba and bachata as well as newer hybrids like reggaeton. Son del Caribe is led by trombonist Jaime Morales, an assistant professor of music at Miami University, acclaimed classical composer, conductor and arranger and a top salsa musician from Puerto Rico who has played alongside such Latin music legends as Eddie Palmieri and Gilberto Santa Rosa. The popular 11-member band appears regularly at Latin dance clubs, community events and music festivals in Cincinnati, Dayton, northern Kentucky and southern Indiana. Among the band’s many high-profile engagements have been performances at Salsa on the Square in Fountain Square, the Cincinnati Salsa Congress and the inaugural Cincinnati Salsa Festival in 2008. The band will close the Dance Pavilion on Friday night.
A resident of Dayton for most of his life, award-winning jazz bassist Eddie Brookshire is a longtime fixture on the local jazz scene. He’s played with such jazz masters as Johnny Lytle, Jimmy Scott, Elvin Jones, Norris Turney and Cal Collins and now leads both a big band and the Eddie Brookshire Quintet, which includes Gary Onady (trumpet), Jack Novotny (tenor and soprano saxophone, flute, bass clarinet), Fenton Sparks (drums) and Keigo Hirakawa (piano). As a well-rehearsed working band with a stable roster and a commitment to performing mostly original material, the Eddie Brookshire Quintet has been extremely well received by jazz enthusiasts at the band’s regular appearances at Gilly’s and throughout the region. Brookshire is a faculty member at Sinclair Community College, where he teaches bass, improvisation and jazz combo; he also teaches bass and jazz combo at the University of Dayton. See the quintet on Sunday on the Main Stage. Listen to them now on Cityfolk's YouTube channel.
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