4:00pm Doors - 4:30pm show
•suggested donation $10-$15
More than 50 cities around the world have participated in the project and1,200 original songs have been written
Each year five guitar-playing singer, songwriters in cities around the world are chosen and tasked with writing a song in a week on the same guitar. It’s the challenge of The Acoustic Guitar Project which culminates in a concert to share and celebrate original music. Saturday, January 28th Hank Dietles hosts afternoon performances by the five 2022 DC area artists—Bill Baker, Tom Prasada-Rao, Bill Williams, Karen Collins, Jillian Matundan and the project’s curator Suzanne Brindamour. 4:30 – 6:30pm. $10 – $15 suggested donation.
DC native Bill Baker is a familiar name in the Washington DC music scene known for his deep compelling voice and award winning, critically acclaimed songs. He has performed his original songs across the States and onto main stage venues at Kerrville Folk Festival, Merlefest, Kennedy center, Strathmore arts center, Barns at Wolftrap and as far as Europe. His original songs and voice blend influences from folk, blues and country to create contemporary music firmly rooted in traditional Americana.
Karen Collins’ influences trace back to her upbringing in the mountains of Southwest Virginia in a coal mining community where she sang in the local Baptist Church and listened to country music on the radio. Her original songs are written and delivered in a traditional country style on topics ranging from love and heartbreak to modern issues such as being stuck in traffic. In addition to performing solo, Karen is lead singer with the honky tonk country band, The Backroads Band, and the Cajun/Zydeco band, Squeeze Bayou. She has won multiple Wammies (Washington Area Music Association awards) for “Country Vocalist,” “Country Duo/Group” (for the Backroads Band) and “Country Recording” for her most recent CD, “No Yodeling on the Radio.”
Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and arranger Bill Williams has been active in the DC music scene since the mid-1980's. Over the last 35 years, he has kept himself busy performing, recording and/or writing for suchnotable DC acts as Last Train Home, Jelly Roll Mortals, Kevin Johnson & the Linemen, the Tone Rangers, the HalfSmokes, Dede & the DoRights, JP McDermott & Western Bop, Little Pink, and the Grandsons, among others. He has been featured in several Bandhouse Gigs and Newmyer Flyer tribute shows (Byrds, Last Waltz, Woodstock 50, George Harrison, Nick Lowe, John Lennon). His 2007 solo elease, Handful, garnered four Wammies
“Tom is the most compelling presence to emerge in the singer-songwriter genre as I’ve seen in a long time” – Jim Bessman, Billboard. “Tom Prasada-Rao has been a gentle giant on the folk scene since the early 1990’s” – Jake Blount, NPR. Prasada-Rao plays venues all over the country, produces and records, and teaches songwriting including eight years at University of Virginia’s Young Writers Workshops. TPR has won 14 Wammies over the years including “Songwriter of the Year.” In May of 2020 Tom Prasada-Rao wrote the song of his life $20 Bill (for George Floyd). Peter Blackstock of the Austin American Statesman called it “song of the year probably – I mean this is a song Bob Dylan should cover.” It has since been covered over 200 times (though not yet by Dylan).
Jillian Matundan is an award-winning, multi-instrumentalist living in Northern Virginia who rediscovered her musical voice after a 15 year hiatus. Since then she has been on a tear, collaborating with other musicians, sharing the stage with and opening for notable artists, and winning audiences with her deft and percussive guitar style, soothing vocals, and warm, unassuming, self-deprecating stage presence. She released her debut EP, “Hanging On” in 2020 and will release her first full-length, crowdfunded album in 2023.