About this Performance
Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sam Amidon brings historical harmony to the big city, with a participatory singalong channeling one of the country’s oldest vocal tradition –200 years old, in fact – as attendees raise their voices in four parts, led and actualized by Amidon. In this free, unticketed event, the public serves as the performers, gathering to collectively create the sound, admission and participation is open to the public.
Creative Credits
Sam Amidon
Curator and Event Leader
Sam Amidon is a singer and multi-instrumentalist (banjo, guitar, fiddle) from Vermont, US, now based in London, England. His new album “Salt River” was released by River Lea / Rough Trade on 24th January, 2025. He has previously released seven acclaimed albums of songs on Bedroom Community and Nonesuch Records.
Amidon’s material for these albums often consists of adventurous reworkings of traditional American ballads, hymns and work songs, with the New York Times writing that Amidon “transforms all of the songs, changing their colors and loading them with trapdoors.” The albums have been deeply collaborative in nature, inviting contributions from musicians such as composer Nico Muhly, guitarist Bill Frisell, and on “Salt River,” saxophonist/producer Sam Gendel.
The release of “Salt River” comes on the heels of the premiere of the Teac Damsa show Nobodaddy in Belfast, followed by a sold out run at Dublin Theatre Festival and London’s Sadlers Wells. Nobodaddy is a dance theatre music piece by choreographer Michael Keegan Dolan, centered around Amidon’s songs. He has also recently finished work on the forthcoming film “History Of Sound,” starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, wherein Amidon served as a consultant and musician.
Cleek Schrey
Composer
Described by the Irish Times as “a musician at one with his instrument and his music,” Cleek Schrey is a fiddler, composer, and filmmaker from Virginia, now based in NYC. He plays a range of instruments including the hardanger d’amore, a violin with sympathetic strings, and the daxophone, a wooden idiophone designed by Hans Reichel. Recent engagements include the Big Ears Festival (TN), the Kilkenny Arts Festival (IR), SuperSense Festival of the Ecstatic (Aus) and Issue Project Room (NYC). Frequent collaborators include electronic music pioneer David Behrman, the viol da gamba player Liam Byrne, traditional fiddle icon Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, and composer Alvin Lucier. The journal Sound Post has noted that Schrey “possesses a rare combination of traits: deep respect for traditional music and the people who make it, and an unbounded curiosity about new directions for sound.” He was a 2021 Pioneer Works Sound Artist-in-Residence on Governors Island and is currently a Resident Artist at Roulette.
Darian Donovan Thomas
Composer
Bio to come.
Anna Roberts-Gevalt
Composer
Bio to come.