Dearest Home

Authenticity & Originality in Perfect Harmony!
For streaming audio and schedule please visit
http://www.reverbnation.com/dearesthome

Dearest Home is the perfect blend of authenticity and originality! You’ll hear expressive vocals in rich, next-of-kin harmony interweave with sprightly dance tunes, as they perform traditional American music—Appalachian music, especially from the Bayard Folk Song Collection, uplifting Old Time music, and authentic US Civil War Era music (in period costume). You’ll enjoy favorites from Jean Ritchie and the Carter Family, Southern Appalachia and the Ozarks too! Don’t be surprised when they share a related gem from Scotland, Ireland, or England. Passion for these traditions shines in every note! They present a wide array of workshops, and they delight in playing for dancers.

Like the band’s multigenerational lineup, Dearest Home’s music unites the generations as it blends dulcimer, fiddle, concertina, whistles, guitar, bass, banjolele, keyboards, and percussion.

In 2015, Dearest Home performed at the Warwick Folk Festival, England, and the Marymass Festival and Edinburgh’s Wee Folk Club, Scotland. Their music is featured in an installation at the internationally acclaimed Seminary Ridge Museum (Civil War, “Faith and Freedom”). Since their 2011 debut, the band has played for venuesincluding the Seminary Ridge Museum Grand Opening, Appalachian Studies Association, Greenwood Furnace Folk Gathering, Common Ground on Seminary Ridge, Heart of the Arts Festival, Penn State University, Music Gettysburg!, Waterford Fair, Civil War Institute, and many other events in MD, NY, PA and VA. During their UK tour, Dearest Home released Back to Laurel Hill, a first full volume of treasures from the Samuel Bayard Folksong Collection (PA and WV). The band’s CD, Dearest Home, featuring authentic Civil War era music and three tracks of Pennsylvania traditional folk songs, was released in 2013. Folk Alliance Triple Crown Winner Si Kahn describes the album:

If ‘home is where the heart is,’ then the singers and musicians who together make up Dearest Home have clearly poured their hearts into their new self-titled album. Deeply steeped in the traditional music of Pennsylvania, my own home state, they have chosen wisely from their wide repertoire of Civil War songs, Appalachian ballads and fiddle tunes. Singing with passion, skill and the resonant matching of voices that seems born in the blood of next-of-kin, Dearest Home presents us with close harmony in many senses of the phrase, on stage and on CD. In their voices, you can hear the peaks and valleys of the landscape, feel the past and future marching together, and sense the shadows of the mountains.

Dearest Home plans a third album with Appalachian music from Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas, including songs from Jean Ritchie and the Carter Family.

Dearest Home is Chris Barnabei, Beth, Margaret and Stephen Folkemer, and Ryan Kozak. Band members perform together in other groups: Folk and Friends (musicians for the ongoing Stories of a Civil War Hospital series),and Celtic band Cormorant’s Fancy.