Mike Marshall & Caterina Lichtenberg

MIKE MARSHALL and CATERINA LICHTENBERG

Two of the worlds greatest mandolinists in the world, join forces in a collaboration of musical styles from around the world. This meeting of musical virtuosos will sure to be one of the sweetest collaborations in the long and colorful history of their chosen instrument.

Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg will take you on a journey of the mandolin. From its lute like roots of 16th century Europe to its journey to the new world of the Americas, picking up strains of melodies from each new place and the many hands that it touched.

This is not the first time Mike Marshall has built musical bridges with mandolinists from around the world. From his early days with the David Grisman Quintet to his founding of the Modern Mandolin Quartet, and his now famous CDs with bluegrass wiz kid Chris Thile and Brazilian virtuoso Hamilton de Holanda.

In each of these musical collaborations Mike has surprised and amazed us without a road map. Creating new music and paying homage to the old that closed the gaps between tradition, geography and innovation while creating a seamless and inspired musical vision.

This time he will team up with one of the finest classical virtuosos in the world today. Living in the former East Germany, Caterina Lichtenberg is now at the peak of her recording and performance career with over 10 CDs to her credit and regular tours of the U.S. Japan, Europe and South America.

She was born in Bulgaria and finished her university studies at the Cologne Academy of Music under Prof. Wilden-Husgen and Prof. Eickhoit. She now holds the position of mandolin professor and director of the Baroque Ensemble at the music academy in Wuppertal, Germany. She is a delight on stage. Captivating and enduring while playing some of the most spectacular virtuoso mandolin playing ever heard.

Mike and Caterina first met when Mike ask her to teach at the Mandolin Symposium in Santa Cruz, CA (a week long gathering of over 150 students and 9 of the best mandolinists from around the world). The two made an instant musical connection and have been building on this relationship ever since.

Over the course of the evening, Caterina and Mike will take you on a journey from the early 1700's Europe through the great 19th Century Italian mandolin heyday to the shores of the present day Americas.

Caterina plays a traditional European style mandolin but also performs early music on a Baroque Mandolin (an ancient instrument with gut frets and a quill from a bird that she uses for a plectrum) and Mike plays a newer style American, Gibson mandolin but may also play a Bach cello suite on his modern mandocello.

From there they travel to Naples, Italy and play music from the golden age of the mandolin by the great composer Raphael Callaci.

As the Italians traveled the world they of course brought their mandolins with them and we now have a long musical history for the instrument everywhere from the British Isles to Venezuela.

The music of the America's has always been about the wonderful collision between all the music's of the world. From those meetings we have something entirely new and yet somehow familiar.

Whether it's Old time Bluegrass, Jazz, Brazilian or Columbia folk music, the mandolin has been a part of this musical heritage and Mike and Caterina give us tastes of many of these places as well as some of Mike's contemporary music.

These two have just completed concerts in Germany this past October where they transformed those halls into magical evenings full of history, musical depth and sensational mandolin playing. The audiences were left spell bound each night by this wonderful combination of intense musical talent, breadth of musical vision and obvious mutual admiration and humor.

Plans are in the works for a new CD and to tour and perform as much as possible in 2009.