Skip to main content
Bluegrass and other old-timey music has long been overrun by bros using it as a platform to show off their virtuosic command of their instruments. Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman eschew that trend in their work, returning the music instead to its roots as a source for social uplift and spiritual connection.
The Brooklyn duo’s performance at Alberta Abbey was generous. They took pains to listen closely to one another and played with care. Brown’s guitar chords and finger-picked melodies were kept spare and simple, and Coleman’s short fiddle solos were more about texture than flair.
Between songs, as they carefully tuned, they shared as much information as possible about the origins of the material in their set. Most of the songs, they said, were handed down to them by other musicians (Coleman says one was sent to her years ago to her America OnLine email address). Others they discovered in more modern realms, such as studio albums (or, in one case, on a favorite YouTube channel).
The pair’s generosity extended to a series of guests that they welcomed onstage throughout the night. And they made room for some fantastic local players they had only recently met at a weeklong roots music conference in Washington state.
During one such moment, Brown hilariously struggled to find her place onstage when she and Coleman were joined by a second guitarist and a standup bassist. Brown ducked behind Coleman, only squeezing herself into the mix when it came time to sing harmonies on the chorus. What better way to remove any semblance of pretension from the proceedings than by making oneself look like a fool in front of a room full of peers and fans?