Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present award-winning contemporary folk singer/songwriter Antje Duvekot and Americana, roots and acoustic blues singer/songwriter Brooks Williams at Next Stage on Friday, December 7 at 7:30 pm.
Antje Duvekot is a German-born, American-raised singer/songwriter whose songs have been critically praised for their hard-won wisdom, dark-eyed realism and street-smart romanticism. Her bicultural upbringing and relative newness to English have helped shape her unique way with a song, giving her a startlingly original poetic palette. They are the keys to the powerful, even revolutionary, empathy that informs everything she writes. She has won some of the top songwriting awards including the Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition, the Kerrville Folk Festival Best New Folk Award and the Boston Music Award for Outstanding Folk Act.
Since the release of her debut studio CD “Big Dream Boulevard,” which was voted #1 Folk Release of 2006 by the Boston Globe and was named to the Top 10 Releases of the Year by National Public Radio’s Folk Alley, Antje has been touring extensively, criss-crossing the US and Europe. She is a compelling live performer and has played at major festivals, including Newport, Mountain Stage, Philadelphia, Falcon Ridge, Great Waters and Kerrville. Her second CD “The Near Demise of the High Wire Dancer” was voted top album of 2009 by lauded folk station WUMB 91.9 FM in Boston. Antje’s fourth studio release, 2016’s “Toward the Thunder,” centers around themes of courage, resilience and striving for something better, and as with most of her writing, a sense of hope and perseverance shines through the songs.
Statesboro, Georgia native Brooks Williams began his career playing bars and coffeehouses of New York and New England, and was soon touring throughout Europe, North America and the UK. He has performed on
major stages and festivals including Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Vienna’s JazzLand, the legendary Guthrie Center, Scotland’s Celtic Connections, Kerrville Festival and the UK’s Glastonbury Festival. He’s ranked in the Top 100 Acoustic Guitarists, and was nominated for Best Male Vocalist by “Spiral Earth,” one of the UK’s most respected roots music publications.
Brooks has recorded 28 solo albums on labels as diverse as Signature Sounds, Green Linnet Records, Reveal Records and Solid Air Records, as well as his own Red Guitar Blue Music. His music has charted on North America’s FOLKDJ, the EuroAmericana chart and Blues Lists around the world, and WUMB-FM in Boston voted him one of their Top 100 Artists. Starting out working with performers such as Chris Smither, Rory Block, Shawn Colvin and Leo Kottke, Brooks has most recently collaborated with the likes of Hans Theessink, Abbie Gardner, Boo Hewerdine and Guy Davis. Brooks teaches fingerstyle and slide guitar workshops at music camps and colleges around the world.
Next Stage is located at 15 Kimball Hill in downtown Putney, VT. Tickets are $20 Advance / $24 At the Door. For information, call 802-387-0102. Advance tickets are available at www.nextstagearts.org, Turn It Up in Brattleboro and Putney Food Co-op in Putney. For more information, visit www.antjeduvekot.com, www.brookswilliams.com, www.twilightmusic.org and www.nextstagearts.org.
