Simple Gifts to perform at church
First Presbyterian Church, 100 E. Wheeling St., Washington, will host Simple Gifts in a free concert at 7 p.m. Dec. 3.
Simple Gifts features Karen Hirshon and Linda Littleton. The award-winning duo plays 12 instruments, and their musical repertoire includes a variety of ethnic folk styles, such as Irish jigs, down-home American reels, hard-driving Klezmer freilachs and haunting Gypsy melodies.
They spice up the mix with the distinctive rhythms of Balkan dance music, the lush sounds of Scandinavian twin fiddling and original compositions written in a traditional style.
Simple Gifts creates some of the finest arrangements in folk music today: Swing fiddle creeps into a Romanian dance, spoons show up in an Irish reel and a traditional West Virginia tune is enhanced by a Turkish drum and Indian shruti box.
Hirshon and Littleton are based in the hills of central Pennsylvania. They play fiddle, mandolin, banjo, recorders, bowed psaltery, hammered dulcimer, baritone fiddle, guitar and percussion.
Admission is made possible, in part, by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
Videos can be viewed at simplegiftsmusic.com/videos.html. To listen to their music, visit simplegiftsmusic.com/listen.html.