For the past 50 years, BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet has been making some of the most potent and popular Cajun music on the planet. Born out of the rich Acadian ancestry of its members, and created and driven by bandleader Michael Doucet’s spellbinding fiddle playing and soulful vocals, BeauSoleil is notorious for bringing even the most staid audience to its feet. BeauSoleil’s distinctive sound derives from the distilled spirits of New Orleans jazz, blues rock, folk, swamp pop, Zydeco, country and bluegrass, captivating listeners from the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, to Carnegie Hall, then all the way across the pond to Richard Thompson’s Meltdown Festival in England.

Their most recent album and the 25th in their 45-year career,  was titled “From Bamako to Carencro,” alluding the cultural and migratory connection between Bamako, in Mali, West Africa, and Louisiana (symbolized in name by the Lafayette, LA suburb of Carencro), a connection that draws a sonic bloodline back to BeauSoleil’s roots. Since becoming the first Cajun band to win a GRAMMY with “L’amour Ou La Folie” (their Traditional Folk Album – 1998) and then a second Grammy in 2010, “Live at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival”, BeauSoleil has garnered many accolades, including twelve GRAMMY nominations. They are regular guests on Garrison Keillor’s NPR show A Prairie Home Companion, where Keillor has dubbed them as “the best Cajun band in the world,” and their music is so integral to the Cajun culture that they have been featured on the New Orleans–based hit HBO program “Treme”. Critics unanimously agree that it is “bon temps, every time they play,” (New York Times).

In addition to their show, Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet created their own Christmas performance, “14 Cajun Christmas”.  A detour from the routine path of holiday musical fare, “14 Cajun Christmas” presents his beloved ensemble performing selections from their rich catalog alongside Bayou flavored versions of classic holiday tunes. Expect both the familiar and some surprises for a ”cool-yule” of an evening!

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

Presenting the Reunion Tour of “On A Winter’s Night” from veteran singer/songwriters that remain among the brightest stars of the singer/songwriter movement for the past three decades. In 1994 Christine Lavin gathered them together, along with folk and Americana artists to showcase music of the Winter Season on the now-classic On A Winter’s Night CD, followed by several years of touring collaborations. These artists have released dozens of recordings and toured steadily through the decades, with fond memories of their touring days together. The winter season is again celebrated by these unique and popular performers, back together by popular demand.

PATTY LARKIN
She redefines the boundaries of folk-urban pop music with her inventive guitar wizardry and uncompromising lyrics and vocals. Acoustic Guitar Magazine hails her, “soundscape experiments” while Rolling Stone praises her, “evocative and sonic shading.” She has been described as, “riveting” (Chicago Tribune), “hypnotic” (Entertainment Weekly), and a “drop-dead brilliant” performer (Performing Songwriter). Recently an Artist-in-Residence at Berklee College of Music – and now on the faculty at Fine Arts Work Center – Larkin reflects, “I have been energized by the poets, writers, and artists I have met while teaching, and find myself on a journey to break down some of the predictable pathways that songs can travel.” Bird in a Cage, her 14th CD now available, puts poems from ten notable poets to song, including US Poet Laureates William Carlos Williams, Stanley Kunitz, Kay Ryan, Robert Pinsky, and Billy Collins, for a new and haunting collection that pulses with the magic of lyricism. Poems are made to be shared aloud, and with Bird, Patty takes up that tradition and sets it aglow.

CLIFF EBERHARDT
One of the most original songsmiths currently on tour, Eberhardt is a highly intelligent, articulate artist whose penetrating and profound lyrics are sometimes overshadowed by his extraordinary guitar playing. Upon close listening, the Philadelphia-born singer’s gift for the English language is abundantly clear. The words that tumble from his mouth are framed by a raspy yet deeply elegant voice. Like John Hammond and Richie Havens, Eberhardt continues to carry the torch for traditional and contemporary folk music through his strong live shows. Whether he’s out on tour solo or with a small band, Eberhardt’s guitar playing, singing, and original folk songs and blues make for a compelling, thought-filled, emotional roller coaster of a concert.

JOHN GORKA
Hailed by Rolling Stone as “the leading singer/songwriter of the New Folk movement,” John Gorka is perhaps the quintessential singer-songwriter of the 90’s folk scene. Originally from New Jersey, John served an apprenticeship at Godfrey Daniels coffeehouse in Bethlehem, PA, then the Greenwich Village Fast Folk scene. Winning the prestigious New Folk award at the Kerrville Folk Festival, in 1984, he was then signed to Red House Records on which he released his landmark first of 17 recordings, I Know. Boston Globe penned Gorka “for the sophisticated intelligence and the provocative originality of his songs.” Recent accolades include 2016’s Indie Acoustic Project’s Best Singer/Songwriter CD of the Year for Before Beginning (Red House Records). 2018 brought his latest release, and 14th of his career, True In Time (Compass Records). True In Time (Compass Records).

LUCY KAPLANSKY
“A truly gifted performer…full of enchanting songs” (New York Times). Blending country, folk and pop styles, Lucy has the unique ability to make every song sound fresh, whether singing her own sweet originals, covering country classics by June Carter Cash and Gram Parsons, or singing pop favorites by Lennon/McCartney and Nick Lowe. Lucy’s iconic voice has been featured in film and on television, including commercials like Chevrolet’s iconic “Heartbeat of America” jingle. A Billboard-charting singer and one of the top-selling artists on Red House Records, she has topped the folk and Americana radio charts and has been featured on shows throughout the world from NPR’s Weekend and Morning Editions to BBC Radio to CBS Sunday Morning. One of the most in-demand harmony singers, Lucy has sung on countless records, performing with Suzanne Vega, Bryan Ferry, Nanci Griffith, and Shawn Colvin.

Another Longworth-Anderson Series evening of great music, food, and drink!  Complimentary pre-concert reception features live music from Stone & Snow, light bites from Ollie’s Trolley and N.Y.P.D. Pizza, and craft beer tastings from HighGrain Brewing Co.

Over the Rhine
2025 Christmas Tour Thoughts

One December, not long after Over the Rhine began recording and touring, we were invited to perform some seasonal songs on a public radio station in Cincinnati. It was Christmastime and apparently they thought we were up to the task. We worked up a few carols and traditional tunes and Karin even read a poem by Thomas Hardy called, The Oxen.

It actually felt really good and conjured up an unusual mix of feelings from childhood: innocence, loss, wonder, joy, sadness. I think we were surprised.

People must have tuned into the radio broadcast, because we began receiving inquiries as to whether we had recorded any of our Christmas songs. I don’t think we had considered it at the time, but any young, struggling songwriter is open to the suggestions of the marketplace, and people were persistent.

In December of 1996 – can it really be almost 30 years ago? – we recorded and released our first song cycle of some of the Christmas carols that still haunted us. We included a few original tunes and called our wintry mix The Darkest Night Of The Year. We played a special “darkest night” release concert on winter solstice in an old 1300-seat theater in Cincinnati. Every last seat was full. Folks began snatching up copies and seemed to agree that they hadn’t heard anything quite like it.

We began playing concerts around the Midwest every December and found that the rooms were usually packed full of people who had bundled in out of the cold with prized compatriots. Hats and scarves abounded. If you stepped outside during intermission, you could make ghosts with your breath in the crisp night air. And it was dark – oh so dark: a time of year with its own music.

A decade later, in 2006, we released our first full collection of original Christmas/holiday songs called Snow Angels. What is it about Christmas music and the undeniable gravitational pull it exerts on some songwriters? So many Christmas songs have already been written. I think we are genuinely curious about the ones that haven’t yet been written.

We continued to tour every December and these special year-winding-down concerts began to feel like an annual tradition – gatherings of extended musical family, without whom, we’d be homeless.

By the time we released our third holiday album of original songs, Blood Oranges In The Snow, in December of 2014, Karin suggested we had discovered a new genre of music: Reality Christmas.

It’s true: if you’ve buried a loved one, or lost a job, or battled a chronic illness, that stuff doesn’t go away during the holidays. It can be a complicated season for many of us.

And then there’s family.

When Karin and I make the annual holiday pilgrimage home to visit family and pull into the driveway and turn off the car, one of us inevitably looks over at the other and says, “Tie a rope around my waist, I’m goin’ in.”

In 2025, just shy of 30 years after releasing our first holiday CD, we are still at it. This year, we will be leaning into some harmonies and making an intimate but hopefully holy ruckus. It won’t be all Christmas music: we’ll certainly mix in tunes from many of our records along the way. But hopefully it’s still true: hopefully you haven’t heard anything quite like it.

Maybe a midnight snow will fall and turn each streetlight into its own private snow globe. Maybe, regardless of whatever reality Christmas brings, we’ll hear a faint echo of a song once rumored to have been sung by angels, a song of peace on earth, goodwill toward all…

We’ve never heard anything quite like it.

We hope you’ll join us,

Linford Detweiler
With Karin close by
Nowhere Else
Clinton County, Ohio

“Two singer-songwriters sit on the edge of a cliff…”

With these words, we are drawn into the world of Both Sides Now – a theatrical concert that explores the music and lives of long-time friends and one-time lovers, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. Created by, and starring Robbie Schaefer and Danielle Wertz, the cabaret-style performance traverses decades alongside songs such as A Case of You, Hallelujah, Big Yellow Taxi, Suzanne, and many more. Both Sides Now is at once a piece of the 60’s and 70’s, and of right now — offering us a story about the messiness of being human, of lives persistently lived at the edge of growth, and of finding the courage to turn toward one another, again and again.

Artist Bios:

Robbie Schaefer

Robbie is a rabbi, singer-songwriter and theatre/film artist. The guitarist and songwriter for the indie folk band Eddie From Ohio has several solo releases as well, including the 2023 single Under the Sun.

He is the founder of Lamplighters, an online community that cultivates small-batch, relationship-driven, inclusive Judaism.

He is also the founder of OneVoice, an international non-profit that unites and empowers youth through music and the creative arts. The organization was active from 2011-2023 and completed projects in Tanzania, Nicaragua, India, Greece, and Israel.

Robbie has shared the stage with Jason Mraz, Sara Bareilles, Josh Groban, Keb ‘ Mo, and Emmylou Harris, among others. His first work for musical theater, Light Years, which explores his relationship with his father, a Holocaust survivor, saw its world premiere at the Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre in 2018. The musical is now a feature film entitled Burst The Silence (Rolling Pictures), which is due for release on streaming platforms in 2025.

He is currently at work on a new musical, The Blue Poppy, an Irish-Jewish ghost story written in collaboration with Scottish playwright Grace Barnes, and Songs From The Wilderness, a new album of Jewish musical midrash (interpretation), due for release in early 2026. 

Also, he likes olives. A lot. 

Danielle Wertz

Danielle is a storyteller, collaborator, jazz musician, composer and arranger. Described as, “untarnished by the politics of music” (Jazz Music Archives) and “a masterful ballad interpreter” (New York City Jazz Record) she has rapidly gained national acclaim.

After being named a 2015 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition semi-finalist, Danielle independently released her debut album, Intertwined, which ranked #4 on Capital Bop’s list of “Best DC Jazz Albums of 2017.” That same year she placed 2nd in the Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition and 3rd in the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Vocal Competition.

In 2023 Danielle released her sophomore album, Other Side. With this project she made a quantum leap as a composer and conceptualist. Reimagined and rewritten during the pandemic, the album pairs her original compositions with carefully crafted arrangements of standards from the Great American Songbook. Jazziz called the album “expressive and polished” and Jazz Weekly noticed a “Joni Mitchell’d tenderness to her material.” Danielle continues to be an avid collaborator internationally and as a member of the NYC jazz scene, and is looking forward to headlining her first European tour in 2025.

Also, she loves chocolate. A lot.

Join us for a rare double bill with Patty Griffin and Rickie Lee Jones, two of America’s most distinctive and celebrated singer-songwriters.

Patty Griffin is among the most consequential singer-songwriters of her generation, a quintessentially American artist whose wide-ranging canon incisively explores the intimate moments and universal emotions that bind us together.

Over two decades, the 2x GRAMMY® Award winner – and 7x nominee – and Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement award winner, has crafted a remarkable body of work in progress that prompted the New York Times to hail her for “[writing] cameo-carved
songs that create complete emotional portraits of specific people…[her] songs have independent lives that continue in your head when the music ends.”

2019 saw the acclaimed release of the renowned artist’s GRAMMY® Award-winning 10th studio recording, PATTY GRIFFIN. One of the most deeply personal recordings of Griffin’s remarkable two-decade career and first-ever eponymous LP, PATTY GRIFFIN made a top 5 debut on Billboard’s “Independent Albums” chart amidst unprecedented worldwide acclaim, and later, a prestigious GRAMMY® Award for “Best Folk Album.”

Griffin’s new album, CROWN OF ROSES, is a deeply personal and introspective work that explores themes of identity, nature, family, and womanhood. Emerging from a creative drought during the pandemic, Griffin found herself re-evaluating the stories she’d long told herself. The result is an eight-track collection that is both sparse and emotionally rich, blending folk, Americana, and blues. With CROWN OF ROSES, Griffin offers a record that’s both grounded and transcendent — one that invites listeners to release old narratives, embrace new truths, and stay truly alive while they’re here. Having crafted a rich catalog that chronicles love and death, heartache and joy, connection and detachment, Patty Griffin continues to push her art forward, as always imbuing every effort with compassion and craft, uncanny perception, and ever-increasing ingenuity.

Rickie Lee Jones is an American musician and storyteller who has been inspiring pop culture for decades, beginning with her first two seminal albums, Rickie Lee Jones and Pirates. Named the “premiere song-stylist and songwriter of her generation” (New Yorker), the two-time Grammy winner will release her first all jazz album in April 2023, produced by Russ Titelman. In 2021, Jones released her celebrated memoir Last Chance Texaco, named Book of the Year by MOJO and a Best Book of the Year at Pitchfork and NPR. The Independent writes, “There has always been something defiant about Rickie Lee Jones . . . a voice from a dream, elusive yet familiar, transcendent, a messenger from another place.”