Joan & Joni – A Musical Tribute to Joan Baez & Joni Mitchell at Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre, May 19 2016

Joan & Joni, a musical tribute to Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, will be featured during the Folk Music Society of Huntington’s monthly Hard Luck Café series at the Cinema Arts Centre (423 Park Avenue, Huntington) on Thursday, May 19, 2016. The 8:30 p.m. concert in the Cinema’s Sky Room will be preceded by an open mic at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are  $15 ($10 for Cinema Arts Centre and FMSH members).  For more information, visit www.fmsh.org or call (631) 425-2925.

In a musical journey from the 1960s to today, singer-songwriters Allison Shapira and Kipyn Martin demonstrate the effect Joan and Joni have had on their own musical development as modern musicians. Allison Shapira is a recovering opera singer who recently found her authentic voice as a folksinger and songwriter. Kipyn Martin is an award-winning Americana singer-songwriter whose roots sink into the banks of the Shenandoah River.

Shapira and Martin met during a Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) conference in November 2013. Both classically trained singers and up-and-coming musicians in the Washington, DC-area folk scene, they soon realized their musical influences were similarly shaped by the folk revival music of the 1960s. Soon, Joan & Joni  (www.joanandjoni.com) was born.

Shapira and Martin’s power comes from their authenticity as performers; they touch people not just through their music but also through their passion and drive to inspire and connect with their audience. They perform a collection of timeless songs by Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell and reveal a few hidden gems from Joan and Joni’s long musical catalogs. By weaving Baez and Mitchell’s themes together with their own individual messages, Shapira and Martin place an important part of American history in a modern context.

Here’s a link to a video clip of Shapira and Martin performing Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game” in concert earlier this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viwfm00mqbc&index=1&list=PLQkLctV6z_xTii4bVWtOF5qloVYSg-XHQ

Shapira, who teaches public speaking and presentation skills as a way to help others find their voice, held a CD release party for her 2012 debut recording of original songs at Club Passim –- the famed Cambridge, Massachusetts coffeehouse venue where Joan Baez got her start in 1958.

Dubbed “a beauty of a singer” by John Gorka, Martin was honored by the Washington Area Music Association in 2015 with a WAMMIE Award for New Artist of the Year. She has also received numerous awards in the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest and showcased her talents at a joint Southeast-Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference in 2014.

Established in 1973, Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre (www.cinemaartscentre.org) seeks to bring the best of cinematic artistry to Long Island and use the power of film to expand the awareness and consciousness of our community. LI’s only not-for-profit, viewer-supported, independent cinema presents a wide array of films that are often accompanied by discussions and guest speakers.

Now in its 47th year, the Folk Music Society of Huntington (www.fmsh.org) presents two monthly concert series, a monthly folk jam and an annual folk festival (Saturday, July 30, 12-10:30 p.m. at Huntington’s Heckscher Park) in conjunction with the Huntington Arts Council. Its First Saturday Concerts series at the Congregational Church of Huntington (30 Washington Drive, off Route 25A, Centerport) features David Amram (June 4).  The Hard Luck Café series closes out its current season on Thursday, June 16, at 7 p.m., with a special NERFA Showcase featuring talented artists from throughout the northeast: Aaron Nathans & Michael Ronstadt, Hayley Reardon, Amy Soucy and Jim Trick.