Simple Gifts duo to perform at Ellen Chapel
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LEWISTOWN - Whether they are attending a weekend festival, a school assembly or an informal jam, Linda Littleton and Karen Hirshon love to share the gift of music. It's one of those Simple Gifts.
Which also happens to be the name of the duo's band.
"We've been together a long time, and it's taken us to some very interesting places," said Littleton, who began her musical studies with classical violin lessons at age 7.
"Besides hearing a wide variety of folk music, there will also be some humor," Hirshon quipped. "We've been told we should be stand-up comics, if we sit down."
Simple Gifts performs at 7 p.m. Saturday, at the Ellen Chapel Church during its Live Music Series at the Fellowship Hall, located at 11764 Ferguson Valley Road, Lewistown. Admission is free, and the general public is invited.
Over the years, Littleton has studied with Joanne Zagst Feldman, Ray Montoni and Geoffrey Michaels. As a student at Princeton University, Littleton majored in philosophy, with a minor in music and a specialty of philosophy of music.
She also has a strong background as a classical violinist, having served as principal second violin in the Nittany Valley Symphony. Additionally, Littleton plays the hammered dulcimer, bowed psaltery, five-string banjo and recorders.
"Both of us started as classical violinists as kids," Littleton said. "We're both self-taught on everything else. Once you play a fiddle, everything else is easier."
Hirshon, who was raised in a family that emphasized church music, grew up singing and easily harmonizing hymns. At age 10, she started violin lessons, and three years later, her fascination with blues and American folk music led her to study folk guitar.
As a student at Grinnell College in Iowa, Hirshon combined history, anthropology and music to design her own specialty in the field of American Studies, "Traditional Music in American Culture."
She studied and was influenced by ragtime, classical, American string band music, African drumming, blues, gospel and jazz. During the 1970s, Hirshon toured nationally with the bluegrass band Whetstone Run and helped found the American old-time group, Rustical Quality String Band, with which she has released two albums."
Over the years, she has also picked up baritone fiddle, mandolin, banjolin, banjo-guitar and a variety of percussion instruments.
"Some people will recognize these instruments and others will be unusual for them," Hirshon said.
The way Littleton and Hirshon talk, they might be math majors and not musicians. "Two women plus 10 instruments equal one good time when Simple Gifts takes the stage," their bio reads for the State College duo.
The two women play 12 instruments - switching with ease among fiddle, mandolin, banjo, recorders, bowed psaltery, hammered dulcimer, baritone fiddle, guitar and percussion - and perform international folk music from a variety of countries - Romanian, Klezmer, Greek, Irish, Scottish and Appalachian.
Typically, they tour in a 10-state area, starting in Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas. "It's far enough to keep it interesting," Hirshon joked.
Drawing on an impressive variety of ethnic folk styles, Littleton and Hirshon are an award-winning duo that plays everything from lively Irish jigs and down-home American reels to hard-driving Klezmer Freilachs and haunting Gypsy melodies.
Their numbers are also filled with the distinctive rhythms of Balkan dance music, lush sounds of Scandinavian twin fiddling and original compositions written in a traditional style.
Combining tradition with innovation, Simple Gifts creates some of the finest arrangements in folk music today: swing fiddle creeps into a Romanian dance; spoons show up in an Irish reel; and a traditional
West Virginia tune is enhanced by a Turkish drum and Indian shruti box.
They've both taught music lessons, offered lots of camps and workshops, performed in museums, libraries, college campuses, festivals, and even played at the Capitol in Harrisburg.
This fall, they'll also celebrate 30 years as a duo.
Simple Gifts is well-known for its outgoing stage presence, which is warm, personal and accented with humor. The women deliver their music with rare intensity and contagious enthusiasm.
"We love a small audience because we can really get interpersonal with them," Littleton said. "It also gives people a chance to see instruments close up. But we've also played before 2,000 or 3,000 at the Philadelphia Folk Festival."
It's obvious when you hear Simple Gifts play, Littleton and Hirshon love the music they play and share their excitement.
"We've been told our sound is world music on bluegrass instruments," Hirshon said.
For more information, visit www.
simplegiftsmusic.com or find them on Facebook.