Cushman home hosts folk performer

Folk singer/songwriter Kate MacLeod, who bills herself as a "neo-traditionalist," performs at 3 p.m. Friday at a house concert at Lake Cushman.

Admission is the suggested donation of $15-$20. A potluck will follow. To make reservations and get the directions to the show, call 360-877-5862.

MacLeod - who divides her time between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Harper's Ferry, West Virginia - plays her original songs, fiddle instrumentals and creative renditions of traditional and popular music on fiddle, guitar and Appalachian mountain dulcimer. She is inspired by old-time American tunes, bluegrass, Celtic music and folk songwriters.

In an email to the Journal, MacLeod wrote that she'll be stepping up to the microphone alone.

"It's rare I perform solo," she wrote. "I usually perform as a trio and up to a six-piece band. It's fun to perform solo now and then, it gives me the freedom to perform things that I rarely get a chance to share with an audience, by not being constrained to perform only the music that the band members know."

Her compositions have been performed by Grammy Award-winning bluegrass musician Laurie Lewis and Mollie O'Brien. She has toured the United States, Canada and Europe.

She also teaches songwriting and fiddle workshops in schools, concert outreach programs, summer camps and music festivals.

Growing up in rural Maryland, MacLeod listened to her mother sing old folk songs.

"My father's family was full of excellent pianists, and Dad had a collection of big band music, which was his favorite genre," she wrote. "But one of the most influential things was I was the youngest of three children and soaked in all the great music releases in the mid-1960s and 70s."

MacLeod started playing violin at age 6. After she began writing songs, she performed on small stages and at radio stations. Last month, she toured in Ohio and Illinois; this month it's Oregon and Washington. This isn't her first tour of Washington - she's performed in the Seattle area, Bellingham and Eastern Washington.

Her current project is recording renditions of songs by American folk musician, Kentucky-born Jean Ritchie.

MacLeod donated three years of volunteer service to the Innocence Lost Project, where she united musicians for playing and performing music. Some of the musicians she helped had spent as many as 28 years in prison due to wrongful convictions.

"It resulted in a band of them who perform together regularly, featuring some of their original music," she wrote.

IF YOU GO

WHO: Folk singer/songwriter Kate MacLeod

WHEN: 3 p.m. Friday

WHERE: Lake Cushman house

ADMISSION: Suggested donation of $15-$20

INFORMATION AND RESERVATIONS: 360-877-5862