Join us for an exciting Monthly Concert featuring Welsh Singer-Songwriter Lleuwen Steffan with the Philadelphia Music Co-op's DK & the Joy Machine opening!
"A voice of archetypal Welsh beauty, simultaneous heaven and earthy - a true soul whammy." Jazzwise magazine UK
Lleuwen is a singer, songwriter and guitarist from the Ogwen Valley in Wales. In 2005 she released Duw A Wyr / God Only Knows, a collection of contemporary interpretations of old Welsh hymns. This collaboration with composer Huw Warren and saxophonist Mark Lockheart was described by critic Stuart Nicholson as 'The most unusual, strangely beautiful album that you're likely to hear.'
Her 2007 debut solo album Penmon (named after her Anglesey home) saw Lleuwen take her music in a more personal direction. Staying true to her roots by focusing the album around the ebb and flow of the Welsh landscape, Lleuwen established herself as a solo artist in her own right and her album was met by great reviews internationally. Interested in Celtic connections through music, Lleuwen performed with Breton singer Nolwenn Korbell at the Lorient Interceltic Festival in 2008. Following that performance, Lleuwen was awarded a Creative Wales Award by Arts Council Wales that enabled her to continue her work with Breton musicians and record Tân, her most successful album to date. The album was co-produced by Vincent Guerin and was awarded Album of the Year for France 3 TV's FR3 Awards yn 2011. It was also nominated for the Welsh Music Prize (www.welshmusicprize.com) in the same year. Lleuwen has won Liet International (http://liet-international.com) for one of her Breton language songs, Ar Gouloù Bev.
Opening for Lleuwen will be the Philadelphia Music Co-op's DK & the Joy Machine! DK's “quirky and smart” songs celebrate all the crucial things in life: unrequited love, falling in love with feral cats, and treating yourself with kindness. Known for her sultry, expressive voice, well crafted songs, and genreblending, innovative work on mountain dulcimer---plucking, strumming, bowing and “rocking out” on this trad instrument, “DK”'s music is at turns evocative, moving, playful and fun, and always genuine. Her first studio recording, the EP, "Love Harder," released in 2013, was described by VENTS magazine as "an album with heart, ...beauty, and passion. In every chord, note, or string you can feel poetry, sincerity, greatness... a record to closely pay attention to and be delighted by.”
Friday 6/17/16, 7pm
New Leaf Club
Free for members, $10 for non-members
