Événement

Laura Cortese and the Dance Cards

Cutting her teeth as a sideman in Bostons roots music scene, Laura Cortese forged a unique path through a pool rich
in talent (due to a large population of Berklee School of Music graduates like herself) including stints as an
instrumentalist with Band of Horses, Pete Seeger, Rose Cousins, Jocie Adams (of the Low Anthem), and Uncle Earl.

Laura Cortese has a vision for her band's sound: bold and elegant, schooled in the lyrical rituals of folk music and backed by grooves that alternately inspire Cajun two-stepping and rock-n-roll hip swagger. It's appropriate then that the quartet, featuring Cortese, call themselves Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards.

Cellist Valerie Thompson (cello/vox), fiddler Jenna Moynihan (fiddle/hardingfele/vox), and a rotating cast of female bass players pair their sophisticated string arrangements and rich vocal harmonies to Cortese's poignant and powerful singing. Watching them on the main stage at a summer folk festival, or tearing it up late-night at a club, you get the sense that they might snap some fiddle strings or punch a hole in the bass drum. This is post-folk that seriously rocks.

True to their adventurous spirit and wide-ranging influences, the group was recently selected for the second consecutive year from a pool of 400 bands to tour with the US State Department's American Music Abroad program. In 2014, the band toured India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Bangladesh to perform and teach as artist ambassadors.