An Evening with Carrie Newcomer with special guests Bob Westfall Trio

Music Starts:02/15/2008 - 8:00pm

Carrie Newcomer

“Rapturously tuneful, Newcomer's material asks all the right questions and refuses to settle for easy answers.” (Rolling Stone)

Describing Carrie Newcomer as a singer-songwriter is a little like saying Noah was a boat-builder. So much goes unsaid when we fall to easy labels. ‘I just have a great love and passion for creating music, for writing, for telling a story,’ says Newcomer, who makes no effort to separate her art from the other parts of her life such as her teaching, her family, her activism, and her spirituality. ‘Sometimes I think you don’t choose your art form; it chooses you, and it doesn’t let you go because that’s who you are. I really believe we are most effective in this world when we’re doing something that is by nature what we love and who we are. That’s when we give our best. Life is short and I want to give the best of what I am.’ Carrie lives her philosophy with her Feb 12, 2008 release on Rounder, The Geography of Light, a skillfully arranged and performed collection of folk-roots tracks with Appalachian and classical influences.

The Geography of Light was influenced by Newcomer’s friendships and recent collaborations with influential authors, theologians and fellow songwriters, including Parker J. Palmer, Phillip Gulley, Jim Wallis, Scott Russell Sanders, Barbara Kingsolver, Holly Near and Bernice Johnson Reagon. Many of the album’s tracks examine compelling ideas and questions arising out of her relationships within this community — the idea that things are not always as they appear; that good exists at the center of things; that life is a process of transformation; that there is value in simple things. Newcomer is one of the few singer/songwriters working within the progressive spiritual continuum, speaking about a shift in our culture, and insisting that the religious right does not have a monopoly on faith. She is not afraid to take on serious subjects, but Newcomer does so with a healthy measure of good humor and self-awareness. Her music draws a bridge between the everyday and the divine rather than setting up a fence between them. Newcomer’s activism springs from her Quaker faith and belief in the dignity and value of the individual, the power of that individual’s calling, and the importance of the gathered community. Newcomer will donate 10% of the profits from her tour sales of the new release to the American Friends Service Committee (www.afsc.org).

Newcomer’s music has been praised in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Acoustic Guitar, Performing Songwriter, Paste Magazine and several other outlets. She has toured with Alison Krauss and Union Station, and her song “I Should’ve Known Better” was recorded by Nickel Creek on their Grammy-winning, gold-selling album This Side.

"Carrie is a touchstone of authenticity in an image-driven, media-defined musical world. She is a beautiful singer and songwriter, and deeply refreshing." (Rosanne Cash)

"It is a mark of spiritual virtuosity when a singer-songwriter can make you dance one moment, laugh the next, and then take you to a deeply moving, even prayerful place . . . Carrie’s music does all of this for me, and more." (Parker J. Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak and The Courage to Teach)