PERFORMING ARTS

Diana Jones’s music is in the best of folk/country/roots music traditions, focusing on the richness of story combined with strong melody. Just as authoritative as her pen is her singing voice, a clarion alto whose rich timbres and elongated phrasing sometimes suggest a cello or viola.

On her latest release, High Atmosphere, she continues to hew to an austere, plainspoken aesthetic, yet its timelessly homespun frameworks are embedded with distinctly topical subject matter. As Bill Friskics-Warren so aptly pointed out in his New York Times profile, Jones “approaches the mountain-ballad tradition not as a curiosity or antique but as a renewable vernacular that’s just as capable of speaking to the human condition now as it was 80 years ago.” (www.dianajonesmusic.com)

Hans York is a German-born, internationally acclaimed performing songwriter who got his musical roots from being born into an occupied Germany and fed a rich diet of American music. These early influences were enhanced and expanded as Hans toured Europe, North and South America. His songs break down the walls between world, pop, folk, jazz, and acoustic music, blending these styles with elegance and grace in a refreshingly original and intriguing work that shines with imagery and a joyful celebration of life and love. (www.hansyork.com)