Thanks to the Telluride (Colo.) Bluegrass Festival, Bela Fleck and his original band of Flecktones are playing a reunion tour that stops at the Lebanon Opera House on Sunday night.
“We’ve always loved doing (Telluride) as a band,” Fleck, the banjo master and winner of 16 Grammy Awards, wrote during an exchange of emails this week. “Everyone was way into it, so we put together a two-week run to get us there at fighting strength.”
Lebanon will be the fifth stop on a 14-show trek for Fleck, pianist/harmonica player Howard Levy, bassist Victor Wooten and percussionist Roy “Futureman” Wooten. While taking just two nights off throughout, they’re not going to test the airport-security system between Wednesday night’s tour-opening show in Roanoke, Va., and the Telluride festival on June 16.
“We’re busing everywhere, which we always like to do, anyway,” Fleck said. “All the gear we have makes flying untenable, anyway.”
That gear includes Futureman’s hybrid “Drumitar” and his “RoyEl,” a piano-like instrument that plays notes outside the traditional scales of Western music, and is based on the periodic table of elements. Those instruments, Levy’s harmonicas, Fleck’s banjos and Victor Wooten’s basses have allowed them to span and transcend genres ranging from bluegrass and jazz to classical, Eastern European folk and African rhythms since they first joined forces in 1988.
Fleck initially recruited Levy and the Wootens for what shaped up as a one-shot performance on PBS’ Lonesome Pine Special. Coming off a decade during which he’d co-founded the band Spectrum, then joined mandolin master Sam Bush’s New Grass Revival, and played on albums with the likes of Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton and Randy Travis, Fleck decided to change course. The Flecktones wound up recording three albums and touring widely over the next four years.
In 1992, Levy took a break to pursue other projects. In the band bio on the Flecktones website, Levy notes that “we were probably playing 150 shows a year at that time maybe more and it was just too much for me. I’ve never, before or since, done any one thing that much!”
Over the subsequent 16 years, Fleck and the Wootens performed first as a trio, then welcomed saxophonist Jeff Coffin for a ride that included five Grammy awards in several different genres.
After Coffin joined the Dave Matthews Band in 2008, the Flecktones took a hiatus, during which Fleck collaborated on a variety of projects, including a duet with jazz pianist-composer Chick Corea and a dive into African music.
The original four reunited in 2009 for a tour of the U.S. and Europe, at the end of which they decided to explore new material on which Levy and the Wootens contributed more compositions, leading to their most recent album, 2011’s genre-defying Rocket Science.
The next few years led everyone in separate directions for a time, including Fleck’s collaboration with wife and fellow banjoist Abigail Washburn, which included a concert at Dartmouth College in 2013. The time away as a band, Fleck says, makes this tour feel like a homecoming.
“We all love and are inspired by each other, and there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since we got together,” Fleck said. “In a certain way, we are each the perfect person to be playing with each other, and we are proud of each other to boot.”
The jury’s out on when and whether they might hit the road together again.
“We’ll see how everyone feels after this run,” Fleck said. “If Abby would like some time at home (with their toddler son), I may run out and do different projects like this.”
As a benefit for COVER Home Repair, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones perform at the Lebanon Opera House on Sunday night at 7:30. For tickets ($47 to $84) and more information, visit lebanonoperahouse.org or call 603-448-0400 or drop by the box office in Lebanon City Hall.
The Old Church Theater in Bradford opens a production of the Ira Levin play Dr. Cook’s Garden with shows at 7:30 on Friday and Saturday nights and at 4 on Sunday. The drama follows a young doctor (played by Owen Mayhew) returning to his small Vermont town to learn disturbing secrets surrounding his mentor (portrayed by Jim Heidenreich). Bing Crosby starred in a TV-movie version shot in Woodstock in the early 1970s. This staging runs through June 12. For tickets ($6 to $12) and more information, visit oldchurchtheater.org or call 802-356-0105.
Sensible Shoes provides the live soundtrack to the monthly Makers Market at 71 Artisans Way in Windsor on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Cheesemakers from in and near the Upper Valley offer samples of their wares, and other forms of liquid and solid refreshment are available, as are a calf-petting zoo and access to the nearby Path of Life Garden.
On Sunday afternoon at 3 in Woodstock’s North Universalist Chapel, the Moving Spirit Dancers join forces with saxophonist Michael Zsoldos, the a cappela ensemble Wrensong, the folk duo of Don Ransom and Diane Mellinger, the Bridgewater Community Chorus and soprano Julie Ness in an Upper Valley Showcase of music, dance and storytelling. Admission at the door is by donation of at least $10 to the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program and the Welcoming All Nationalities Network.
To benefit the Enfield Public Library’s campaign for a new building, the Dauphinais Brothers performs bluegrass and sell CDs on Sunday afternoon at 1 and 4 in the Mary Keane Chapel at the Enfield Shaker Museum. For tickets ($10) and more information, call 603-632-7145.
Starting next Thursday night, the New London Barn Playhouse introduces its 2016 troupe of actors, singers and dancers with five performances of its 59th annual Straw Hat Revue. While tickets are free for the shows, scheduled for 7:30 on June 10 and 11, and for 5 p.m. on June 11 and 12, the playhouse advises reserving early. For more information, visit the box office in New London or nlbarn.org or call 603-526-6710.
The Springfield (Vt.) Community Players perform Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker’s The Aliens at the Players Studio in downtown Springfield on Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30. The play follows young people exploring issues of friendship, art, love and death at a coffeehouse in the fictional town of Shirley, Vt. To reserve tickets ($12 to $15) and learn more, visit springfieldcommunityplayers.org or call 802-885-4098.
The Parish Players lower the curtain on their run of the Arthur Miller drama Death of a Salesman with performances at 7 tonight, Friday night and Saturday nights and at 2 on Sunday afternoon, at the Eclipse Grange theater on Thetford Hill. The production stars Upper Valley veteran actors Mike Backman of Quechee and Kay Morton of Thetford as Willy and Linda Loman. For tickets ($10 to $15) and more information, visit parishplayers.org or call 802-785-4344.
Are you The One That They Want? The Claremont-based Repertory Theatre Company is now scheduling auditions for singers, actors and dancers interested in performing in its production of the 1950s teen-themed musical Grease at the Claremont Opera House, set for the first week of August. To schedule a day and time to audition, call 603-542-0064.
The Party Crashers welcome summer by rocking Lyman Point Park in White River Junction tonight at 6.
For their annual spring concerts on Friday night and Sunday afternoon in northern Grafton County, the Pine Hill Singers present “Music, Lead the Way,” works chosen as an antidote to what the ensemble describes as “the many recent acts of violence and intolerance in our country and around the world.” Compositions include Faure’s Messe Basse, Morricone’s Nella Fantasia, John Lennon’s Imagine, American gospel songs, an Israeli folk song and Buddhist activist Thich Nhat Hanh’s A Prayer for Peace. The Friday night concert starts at 7 at Alumni Hall in Haverhill. And on Sunday afternoon at 3, the ensemble tunes up at the Sugar Hill Meeting House. Admission to both concerts is by donation.
Under the direction of Erma Mellinger, the Cantabile women’s chorus performs its “Come to the Garden” concert of flower-themed compositions at 4 on Saturday afternoon at the Norwich Congregational Church and at 4 on Sunday afternoon at Lyme Congregational Church. To reserve tickets ($5 to $15) and learn more, visit cantabilewomen.org.
The Mascoma Music ensemble bids farewell to the school’s soon-to-be-refurbished gymnasium in West Canaan on Saturday night at 7. During Saturday’s Spring Concert, the group, which next academic year will perform in the school’s new auditorium, also will pay tribute to former Mascoma music teacher (and Upper Valley Community Band leader) Carole Blake, who died earlier this year.
The Chandler Music Hall in Randolph screens a restored version of A Vermont Romance, believed to be the first feature movie shot in the Green Mountain State, on Friday night at 7. The Vermont Movie Archive Project remastered the 36-minute-long film, which the Vermont Progressive Party commissioned in 1916, to high-definition digital. It follows the adventures of a young Vermont woman who loses the family farm after the death of her father, and moves to Burlington to find work. Along the way, the movie shows the Vermont landscape of a century ago, plus street scenes in Burlington of a steam-powered train, horse-drawn cabs, and industries on the Lake Champlain waterfront. For advance tickets ($8 general admission) and more information, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-6464.
As a benefit for the Trumbull Hall Troupe, students of the Dance Collective studio perform their spring recital of ballet, tap, contemporary, hip-hop, modern, Broadway and partner dancing at Lebanon Opera House on Saturday afternoon at 5:30. For tickets ($10 to $14) and more information, visit thedancecollectivenh.com or call 603-998-9045.
The Wall-Stiles play a set of folk-rock at the Lyme Inn from 6 to 9 tonight. To reserve a table and learn more, call 603-795-4824.
Guitarist Ed Eastridge plays at the Canoe Club in Hanover tonight at 6:30. Following him to the microphone with 6:30 to 9:30 shows over the coming week are guitarist Billy Rosen on Friday, saxophonist Katie Runde and singer-guitarist Ted Mortimer on Saturday, pianist Randall Mullen on Sunday, acoustic chameleon Joseph Stallsmith on Tuesday, pianist Gillian Joy on Wednesday, and saxophonist Michael Parker and guitarist Ted Mortimer next Thursday. And on Monday night starting at 5:30, Marko the Magician performs his weekly, tableside sleight-of-hand.
The Exit 9 Blues Band pulls into Windsor Station tonight from 7 to 10. Next up over the coming week are Moxley Union with a set of rock on Saturday night at 10 and The Aislings folk duo of Jaime Danner and Michael McNaughton on Tuesday night at 6.
Singer-songwriter James Mee appears at Bentley’s restaurant in Woodstock tonight at 8. And next Thursday at the same time, Dave Clark and Juke Joynt take the stage.
Frydaddy frontman Carlos Ocasio rocks Jesse’s restaurant in Hanover on Friday night at 5.
Harpist Haley Hewitt performs the final weekly Sunapee Community Coffeehouse of the season at the Sunapee Methodist Church on Friday night at 7. While admission is free, donations for the performer are welcome. The coffeehouse resumes in September. For more information, visit sunapeecoffeehouse.org.
The Friday night line-up at the Upper Valley’s Salt hill pubs features saxophonist Michael Parker and guitarist Ted Mortimer in Hanover and bluesman Arthur James in Newport. On Saturday, the choices are The Better Days Band in Newport, the funk quintet Oak Totem in Hanover and The Tricksters in Lebanon. Shows start at 8.
Bassist Peter Concilio leads tenor saxophonist Matt Langley, keyboards player Tom Robinson and drummer Tim Gilmore into Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night, for a session of jazz from 8 to 11.
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic starting at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays. Participants get a free large cheese pizza.
String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
Joe Stallsmith leads a weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass at Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Monday nights at 6.
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
The Seven Barrel Brewery in West Lebanon runs an open mic on Tuesday nights, beginning at 8.
Jim Yeager hosts an open mic at Hartland’s Skunk Hollow Tavern, at 8:30 on Wednesday nights.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.