Happy holidays everyone! We have had a quiet start to our winter. As Eric Reiner prepares to head to Ireland, we have begun working with Julie and are very excited to play our gigs next month. In addition, we have been spending time finishing up our CD. We've decided to drop the "Soft Shuffle" title and self-title the album. A huge thanks to Andy Reiner of Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers for engineering and helping us make this project happen! This is what the cover will look like:

The CD should be avavailable early this winter, but you may not see an official release show until the summer! The cover photo was taken by Gary Phillips of the Northboro Contra Dance in November, and some of his other photos have permeated the site as well. Thanks, Gary!

I just moved into a new apartment and have been enjoying spending some free time sitting on my new couch with a cup of good black tea and listening to some recordings from past Matching Orange gigs and rehearsals. We record almost everything we do in some fashion. In particular, I enjoyed listening to a very intimate performance we did back in September at the Montague Bookmill. This is a wicked cool venue that includes a huge used book store, a used cd shop, a cafe with wireless internet (one of my favorite things) and a restaurant all in the same place! On weekends they often stay open later to showcase acoustic music. We played two sets acoustic for an audience that included some good friends of ours, so the atmosphere was very comfortable. When I first listened to this recording I was dissapointed because we played with a window open, and you can hear the constant sound of a river rushing by. But as I listened back, I came to enjoy the sound, and it really made this recording stand out to me as a representation of the evening. I've set up a page here where you can listen to some of these tracks. Some other info that has changed is that Chris Stevens will no longer be playing with us during our gigs in May. He will be in France! We will have our usual set up with Julie instead. Chris will be filling in for Eric Reiner on September 18th when we play Concerts at the Captain's house.

Some good news and bad news. Our piano player Eric-Eid Reiner has decided to spend his Spring semester studying abroad in Cork, Ireland. This is good news, but bad news for us, since that puts quite a distance between us. So instead, we will have a few different people playing with us. Our primary sub will be our good friend Julie Vallimont. Some of you may know Julie from the band Nor'easter. She will playing many of our gigs this Winter/Spring, including when we play the Dance Flurry Festival in February. We are psyched to work with her! It's also possible we'll be working with a few other players during Eric's absence.

We will definitely be working with another good friend of ours. Maine based box player Christian "Junior" Stevens will be joining us when we go to Maine in May. You can see Chris playing for concerts and dances all over the country with bands like Magic Foot, The Milliners, The Lissa Schneckenburger Band and many others. We're excited to have him join us. Currently, he'll be at The Maine Botanical Gardens Concert Series and at the Skye Theatre. Stay tuned for more updates on subs as we continue to iron out the details.

We spent the day at Wheaton College on Friday. This is Eric Eid-Reiner's home base. In March, we played the first contra dance at Wheaton ever, which also happened to be the first gig we did with Brendan. Since then, they have created a contra cluster. These are groups at Wheaton that are kind of like clubs, but more intense. This means they will be hosting more dances, and it was waaay cool to be asked back. The enthusiasm was really high, and there were lots of new contra dancers getting really into it, which was great to see. In the afternoon, we had a great photo shoot with Amie Rosenblum in anticipation of our upcoming CD. Speaking of which, this may be the first you've heard of that (or maybe not). We are almost done recording it, and we have chosen the name "Soft Shuffle." An official release date has not been set, but stay tuned for that soon. We are really looking forward to our gig next weekend when we will be opening for Malinky! Come on out!!

Today, our fiddle player Brendan Carey Block is in Washington DC with guitarist Flynn Cohen, performing an afternoon concert at the Library of Congress and then heading over to The Kennedy Center's Millenium Stage for an evening concert. This series is put on by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. There are about 8 concerts per year, and each one features a traditional performer from a different state (meaning it will take eight years to cycle through). Brendan is representing NH, and he is the youngest performer to be selected for the honor.

Tonight at Club Passim, our piano player Eric Eid-Reiner will release his second solo album, entitled "On a Meadowlark Night: Dance Music from New England, Ireland, Scotland, Québec, and Cape Breton." The album features guests Kimberley Fraser (fiddle), David Reiner (fiddle), and Andy Reiner (fiddle & mandolin), Billy Novick (clarinet), Ken Kolodner (hammered dulcimer) and Anna Grosslein (flute). Tonight's concert will feature many of these guests, as well as fiddler Julie Metcalf and mandolinist Eric McDonald (of Matching Orange). You can order the new cd here. And don't forget to check out the media page to order Eric's first CD as well.

Over the past few months, we have had a blast playing with some excellent fiddle players (Lissa Schneckenburger, Trent Freeman and Julie Metcalf), and while you may see some of those players at some of our upcoming gigs, we are very excited to announce that we have officially added Brendan Carey Block as our fiddle player. We played with Brendan for the first time last night at Wheaton College, and it was fantastic. We are looking forward to working with him! You can check out some of the other work he does with the band Annalivia.