American Byways Returns to Carnegie Hall This November

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Rosanne Cashreturns to Carnegie Hall this season to curate and host American Byways, a two-concert exploration in Zankel Hall highlighting the rich and disparate elements in American roots music.

Kicking the series off, on Saturday November 3 at 9:00 p.m., Cash presents a special double bill showcasing the unique ways traditional roots music continues to evolve. Anna & Elizabeth embrace the timeless folk ballad tradition as their soulful voices intertwine with acoustic instruments and electronic effects. The Low Anthem blends clear, pure vocal harmonies with dashes of electronica and ambient sounds to create a unique brand of spare, subtle, and deeply eloquent music.

On Saturday, March 23 at 9:00 p.m., as part of Carnegie Hall's citywide festival Migrations: The Making of America, Cash brings together folk artists Karine Polwart and Kaia Kater for a look back at Scottish and Canadian roots while creating a progressive and thrilling new brand of music. Polwart is a multi-award-winning Scottish songwriter, poet, and essayist who performs traditional music, as well as her own strikingly original, deeply personal songs. Born of African-Caribbean descent in Quebec, Kater performs impressively original music influenced by the Canadian folk songs of her parents and the years she studied and performed Appalachian music in West Virginia.

Prior to these performances, beginning at 8:00 p.m., concert-goers are invited to enjoy a laid-back pre-concert experience with drinks in the Zankel Hall lounge where they can meet others who share their passion for music. For more information please visit: carnegiehall.org/latenights.

Formed in 2007 by best friends, Ben Knox Miller and Jeff Prystowsky, The Low Anthem grew from DIY ethos in the late-aughts to semi-accidental success. Having originally self-released What The Crow Brings and Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, the group signed with Nonesuch, toured the world, and were reluctantly lumped in with the so-called "folk revival." However, night after night of performing their early material was not ultimately where they wanted to land: "The moment was losing its mystery. We were scared of becoming robots," said the band after six years of reflection.

They returned to their hometown of Providence, Rhode Island in 2012 and instead poured their energy into their local community by restoring a vaudeville-era theatre and building their own recording studio within. The Low Anthem are now into a groove of their own, under their own terms. Their unique blend of organic and electronic sounds shines through on The Salt Doll Went To Measure The Depth Of The Sea, an album that was triggered when Knox Miller was reading John Cage's biography Where The Heart Beats, by Kay Larsen, in the aftermath of a horrific tour van accident. Since being met with critical acclaim, the band has adapted the story into a live show which they are now sharing with enamored audiences around the world alongside dear friends, Florence Grace Wallis on violin, and Bryan Minto on guitars.

Anna Roberts-Gevalt is a voracious and curious musician who nestles in the space between ancient ballads and new sounds. After spending years in Baltimore's underground art scene, she now resides in Brooklyn, NY. She fell in love with the sound of banjo in college, moved to the mountains, and learned with master musicians in Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina. She has been a fellow at the Berea College Traditional Music Archive and OneBeat (Bang on a Can's Found Sound Nation); three years artistic director of Kentucky's traditional music institute, the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School; and co-curator of Baltimore's Crankie Festival. She is a summer 2017 fellow at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, and recently studied in a workshop with Meredith Monk.

Elizabeth LaPrelle is a world-renowned ballad singer who resides on a farm in Rural Retreat, VA. The student of master singer Ginny Hawker and National Heritage Fellow Sheila Kay Adams, LaPrelle was the first recipient of the Henry Reed Award from the Library of Congress at age 16, and won the 2012 Mike Seeger Award at Folk Alliance International. She has been hailed as "the best young Appalachian ballad singer to emerge in recent memory" by UK's Roots magazine.

BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year 2018 award winner Karine Polwart is a Scottish songwriter and musician, as well as a theatre maker, storyteller, spoken-word performer and published essayist. Her songs combine folk influences and myth with themes that are diverse and complex. She sings traditional songs too and writes to commission for theatre, animation and thematic collaborative projects. Polwart is a six-time winner at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, including twice for "Best Original Song." In association with the Royal Lyceum Theatre and Edinburgh International Festival in 2016, Karine wrote, musically directed, and performed Wind Resistance, her critically acclaimed debut work for theatre. A poetic meditation on midwifery, ecology, sanctuary, and solidarity, it combines elements of memoir, essay, myth, sound art and song. Wind Resistance won the "Best Music and Sound Award" at the CATS (Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland) in 2017 and Karine was also shortlisted for the Best Actor 'Scottish Oscar' in the Sunday Herald Culture Awards.

A Montreal-born Grenadian-Canadian, Kaia Kater grew up between two worlds: one her family's deep ties to folk music; the other the years she spent soaking up Appalachian music in West Virginia. Her old-time banjo-picking skills, deft arrangements, and songwriting abilities have landed her in the spotlight in North America and the UK, garnering critical acclaim from outlets such as NPR, CBC Radio, Rolling Stone, BBC Music, and No Depression.

Kater started her career early, crafting her first EP Old Soul (2013) when she was just out of high school. Since then, she's gone on to release two more albums, Sorrow Bound (2015) and Nine Pin(2016). Her most recent album weaves between hard-hitting songs that touch on social issues like the Black Lives Matter movement ("Rising Down," "Paradise Fell") and more personal narratives speaking to life and love in the digital age ("Saint Elizabeth"). Nine Pin won a Canadian Folk Music Award, a Stingray Rising Star Award and sent Kaia on an 18-month touring journey from Ireland to Iowa, including stops at the Kennedy Center, Hillside Festival and London's O2 Shepherd's Bush. For her third album, Grenades (October 2018, Folkways/acronym Records), she took a decidedly different direction, choosing to lean into a wider array of sounds and styles, in order to convey a wider array of emotions and topics, most notably her paternal ancestry.

Tickets for both performances, priced at $50 and $65, are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 West 57th Street, or can be charged to major credit cards by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, or online by visiting carnegiehall.org.

Photo: Karine Polwart by Sandy Butler, and Kaia Kater by Todd Coope