 |
|
|
Special Guests Saturday, June 17, 2006 Peter Ostroushko Peter Ostroushko's first recording session was an uncredited mandolin set on Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks. He toured on a regular basis with Robin and Linda Williams, Norman Blake and the Rising Fawn Ensemble, and Chet Atkins. He also performed Jethro Burns, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Johnny Gimble, Greg Brown, John Hartford, Taj Mahal and others. His compositions have been performed by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Sinfonia, the Rochester (Minnesota) Symphony Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony and the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra. Ken Burns used music from Peter's recording Heart of the Heartland for his PBS documentary Lewis & Clark, and Twin Cities Public Television commissioned Peter to provide music for their nationally distributed programs The Dakota Conflict and Grant Wood's America. Peter's latest CD is Postcards: Travels with a Great American Radio Show (Red House Records), songs he composed while traveling with A Prairie Home Companion.Alice Peacock Singer/songwriter Alice Peacock, who grew up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, comes from a long line of performers: Her parents were both actors, her grandmother, Grita Albrecht Gnass, was a cabaret composer, and her grandfather, Fritz Gnass, was an actor who worked with Bertolt Brecht and appeared in Fritz Lang's M. Young Alice made up songs on the family's piano—a sign of things to come. While a theater major at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, Alice took an interest in jazz, blues, folk and bluegrass. After college, she sang backup with a San Francisco R&B band, before moving to Chicago to pursue a solo career. She has recorded three albums—Real Day, Alice Peacock and her brand-new CD, Who I Am (Universal). Reading has always been one of Alice's passions. There was no television in the house when she was a kid ("My mother was convinced it would turn our brains to JELL-O"), so Alice devoured books and practically lived at the library. She says it's why she became a writer, and why she and her husband and a friend founded the not-for-profit organization Rock for Reading, which raises money for literacy and reading programs in Chicago.The Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra The Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra was formed in 1900 as the Bonne Amie Musical Circle (BAMC). At the turn of the 20th century, the mandolin—which made its way to America with immigrants from Italy—had won the hearts of music lovers throughout the United States. The BAMC—the oldest organization of its kind in the U.S. and one of the oldest in the world—was the first of many mandolin orchestras to spring up around the country. These days, the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra plays popular music from the period between 1895 and 1920. They use arrangements published in those early decades specifically for mandolin orchestra. A few years ago, the group recorded a CD titled Mandolins in the Moonlight. A new album is in the works and scheduled for release in November. Members of the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra: (first mandolin) Paul Ruppa, Linda Binder, Mikhail Litvin; (second mandolin) Dave Moynihan, Frank Ullenberg, Shirlee Henningsen, Lisa Lyons, Helene Parker, Bill Murphy; (tenor mandola) Tom Schwark, Tom Gaudynski; (mando—cello) Bill Foley; (guitar) Bill Rickards, Tim Detzer, Jeff Binder; (mando—bass) Bruce O'Neill; (flute) Maribeth Sacho.The Hopeful Gospel Quartet As the Hopeful Gospel Quartet (Garrison Keillor, Robin and Linda Williams, and Carol Elizabeth Jones) explains it, the group "began its career backstage at Prairie Home shows, when we stood waiting for the balloon to go up and sang to pass the time and found out that we all like gospel songs and that they sound wonderful in a stairwell." Now, countless gigs (and a couple of personnel changes) later, they are still finding great four-part harmonies in stairwells and on stages across the country.Singing the music they love—be it bluegrass, folk, old—time, or acoustic country—Robin and Linda Williams have carved out a three—decade career that has taken them from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl. They've have written dozens of terrific songs, ones that have been covered by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Tom T. Hall, Tim & Mollie O'Brien, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kathy Mattea, and The Seldom Scene. Robin and Linda's latest CDs are Deeper Waters and The First Christmas Gift, both on Red House Records. Carol Elizabeth Jones hails from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She has made her mark as a singer of traditional mountain music and as a writer of new songs in the old tradition. She has recorded several acclaimed albums of original material. Ridin' Along (Yodel-Ay-Hee Records), released in 2005, is a collection of classic country and bluegrass duets with Laurel Bliss. Andy Stein Andy Stein (violin, saxophone) collaborated with Garrison Keillor to create the opera Mr. and Mrs. Olson. He has appeared on Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman, and has performed with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Eric Clapton, Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles and Bob Dylan. |
| | | |
  Sign up here for our weekly e-pistle about what's happening at A Prairie Home Companion! Heck, while you're there, sign up for the daily e-mail from The Writer's Almanac too
| |
 |
|
|
