MAELSTROM is a group of three young musicians from the DC area.  Although their roots are in Celtic music, they are inspired by the variety of folk traditions, exploring them through innovative fusions.  Peri, Darrow, and Abe perform their own compositions as well as original arrangements of everything from French Canadian to Klezmer tunes and songs.  Their sound is recognized for its tight and creative harmonies.

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“We like to think of the folk tradition as a tree,” says fiddler/guitarist Abraham Joyner-Meyers.  “It has roots, the musicians who have come before us and the tunes that have been passed down through generations.  Those roots support the branches, the varieties of music that have developed in the world’s diverse geographic, political, and cultural contexts. While we are just the new growth on the edge of the canopy, we love exploring the connections between the branches and the roots.”

 

This past year, Maelstrom “pleased crowds at the ‘Triple Crown’--the Washington Folk Festival, FSGW Midwinter Festival, and Takoma Park Folk Festival,” said Mike Livingston, Program Chair of the Folklore Society of Greater Washington. They also performed a televised solo concert at We Are Takoma, played at SOFAR DC, and were recently selected to perform at the 2017 Intersections festival at both the Atlas Performing Arts Center in DC and the New England Folk Festival in Massachusetts.

 

“Maelstrom presents remarkably authentic renditions of tunes from various traditions as well as wonderfully imaginative and playful fusions that are as compelling and thoughtful as they are well-executed,” says Mitch Fanning, folk music faculty member at the Washington Conservatory of Music.  “You'll wonder how three so young could be so good.”