Rayna Gellert grew up in a musical family, and has spent most of her life immersed in the sounds of rural stringband music, heartfelt gospel songs, and old ballads. After honing her fiddle skills playing at jam sessions and square dances, Rayna fell into a life of traveling and performing. Her fiddle albums are widely celebrated in the old-time music community, and she has recorded with a host of musicians in a variety of styles – including Robyn Hitchcock, Tyler Ramsey, Sara Watkins, Loudon Wainwright III, John Paul Jones, and Abigail Washburn. From 2003 through 2008, Rayna was a member of the acclaimed stringband Uncle Earl, with whom she released two albums on Rounder Records and toured like mad. These days she can be found on stage with Scott Miller, Toubab Krewe, or her father, Dan Gellert. She lives in Swannanoa, North Carolina.
Cassandra Jenkins also grew up in a musical family and has often performed as an opening act at the Jenkins House Concerts. She plays acoustic and electric guitar, banjo and keyboard and has been successfully experimenting with songwriting over the past five years. Recently she formed a band with a pianist and drummer both of whom will be performing with her on April 28. Cassandra has toured with several groups including The Jenkins Sisters and Uncle Earl on their Australian tour in 2010. She is in the process of recording her original songs and will perform several of them at the April concert.
Kristin Andreassen is a musician and dancer. She grew up in Portland, Oregon but has most recently made Brooklyn her home. Kristen, along with the Jolly Bankers, performed at our very first house concert in 2002. She is a singer song-writer and is a multi-instrumentalist who performs mostly on the guitar. From 1999 onwards she worked as a principal dancer, teaching & performing various related forms of percussive dance: clogging, tap, Irish & Canadian step dance with the Footworks Dance Ensemble. In December 2003 she joined the group Uncle Earl along with band-mate Rayna Gellert. With the song Crayola Doesn't Make A Color For Your Eyes, that she wrote together with Megan Downes, Kristin has won the 2006 the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in the "Children's" category.
For more information and a reservation for this Manhattan based concert, please contact Sandilion49@gmail.com
