Up Close with Rinde Eckert
Voice, Words, Music and Friends

Rinde Eckert—recipient of the 2005 Marc Blitzstein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters—is a singer, writer, composer, actor, mover, and musician: in short, a performing artist extraordinaire. His program features both new and classic solo works that highlight his remarkable voice, masterful writing, and wide-ranging instrumental artistry on an array of unconventional instruments. To close out the program, he’ll be joined by longtime collaborators Paul Dresher and Joel Davel, who will perform on their own invented instruments, the Hurdy Grande and Marimba Lumina.

Paul asked Rinde about this upcoming 90-minute performance in our studio.
“I’m planning on playing some old favorites and some new ones, as well as a couple of experiments with new friends. I’ve started most concerts (including my Kennedy Center concert) with a lament sung with an accordion. I won’t break the tradition this time. Prayer is another favorite, built on a piece I wrote for The Gardening of Thomas D., which is for piano. I’m bringing my 10-string slide guitar so that The Idiot Variations will be represented. From my last CD, The Natural World, I’ll sing Catbird (piano) and Black is the Color (accordion). Ellen made me promise to sing One Night On eave from Highway Ulysses and Time is Not a Simple Thing from The Raft (the piece that Covid killed).”