Red Tail Ring

We’ve just returned home from collaborating in the first season of the new cross genre festival – Beethoven & Banjos. Working alongside members of Decoda – Carnegie Hall’s affiliate ensemble, we presented three concerts and three school programs to Upper Peninsula residents. Our week was a completely enriching musical immersion, with daytimes full of rehearsals with our extremely talented cohorts, and evenings scheduled with public concerts and interactive performances at local schools. This year two brand new pieces had their world-premier – a violin/viola duet based on Scandinavian dances by Evan Premo, and a three-part quintet based on Upper Peninsula waters composed by Laurel and Evan Premo. Aside from that, most of the material that we performed had never been heard in it’s current form, from Red Tail Ring songs with new string arrangements, to Beethoven minuets with shimmers of traditional American tunes tucked inside. We’re thrilled to have been part of the first year of this festival, and will continue to support it in future seasons.

We’ll be traveling to Vermont in October for an encore performance of the music prepared for Beethoven & Banjos. Here are the upcoming cross-genre concerts that will be presented by Scrag Mountain Music.

Posted 10/5/15. Photo credit Zolton Cohen.

We’re gearing up for the famed Earthwork Harvest Gathering, the homecoming festival of the Earthwork Music Collective (and de facto meeting of minds for all of Michigan). HG 2015 will feature the best in Michigan music, from longtime staples like Seth Bernard & May Erlewine and Chris Bathgate to newcomers The Northern Fires and Vox Vidorra, from psychedelic jam masters The Macpodz to Breathe Owl Breathe – masters of the minimal jam. The festival will feature several different types of sets by us, a Barn Stage set of RTR music in addition to Michael rocking out with Prine Time (his John Prine tribute brotherhood) and Laurel playing with Micah Ling (folk cellist extraordinaire), a set with Earthwork Women, and Shari Kane & Dave Steele. It’s a festival we look forward to all year, and one we recommend highly. Hope to see you there!

Posted 9/8/15

We’ll be all over this month, with shows in Virginia and Washington D.C., and various parts of Michigan, as far North as Aura, and as out of the way as Mackinac Island. Join us to get in on some of this summer fun.

 Posted 7/7/15

We’re so excited to announce that we’ll be appearing at next month’s Salmon Arm Roots & Blues Festival in British Columbia, Canada alongside Canned Heat, Elephant Revival, John Oates, Marty Stuart, Scott Cook, The Duhks, The Slocan Ramblers, and many others! Believe it or not, this will be our very first musical venture to Canada, so wish us well and help us spread the word to your B.C. friends.

 Posted 7/7/15

We’re gearing up for a weeklong Midwest tour this month which will bring us to some of our favorite cities. The finale of our tour will be a weekend in Kansas City, MO at the International Folk Alliance Convention where we’ll get to spend time with our musical friends from all over North America.

We’re stopping in Chicago, Madison, Lombard, Urbana, Rolla, Columbia, and St. Louis on the way. Check out the tour spots:

 Posted 2/10/15

We’ll be posting photos and tweets of the happenings at the Folk Alliance International Convention during Feb 19th-22nd. Follow our feed on the right column of this page to take in a bit of the wildness that is created by 3,000 musicians, agents, venue owners, and promoters all in one place. Its a biodome of the music industry.

Posted 2/9/15