(BUY TICKETS HERE: https://www.scemusic.org/event-details/monticellos-two-worlds-sherman)

This evocative program bridges the divide between the plantation’s salon and its slave quarters, bringing the complex, intertwined soundscape of early America to life.

Curated by acclaimed violinist, fiddle player and raconteur Paul Woodiel, and featuring Craig Edwards, performing artist and teaching musician specializing in American roots music and traditional instruments. (https://www.fiddlecraig.com). Also Susan Rotholz (fife, flute), Eliot Bailen (cello and guitar) and other special guests.

Thomas Jefferson’s hilltop estate of Monticello, where intellect, ambition, and contradiction once coexisted, was the home to a lesser-known dimension of his world: his deep and enduring relationship with music. An accomplished amateur violinist, Jefferson believed music to be essential to the human spirit, a companion to reason and a refinement of the mind. This evening’s program draws from the very repertoire he admired—elegant works of the European tradition that echoed through the rooms of his home, reflecting both his personal tastes and the cultural aspirations of a young nation looking outward for artistic identity.

Yet, beyond the parlor walls of Monticello lay other powerful musical currents. The sounds of the enslaved African community across the property formed a parallel and profoundly influential musical world, and its collision with the social music and dance traditions of the oppressors, created  new forms that would forever shape the trajectory of American music in the 250 years which have followed. It is in that intersection that we find the early stirrings of a distinctly American voice—complex, layered, and inseparable from the full truth of its history.

Tickets $30. Children ages 16 and under free.