For a Winter's Night

I chose this title for my newest performance with Kevin Doyle's Roscommon Soles. "...for a winter's night" is a refrain by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar that describes spending a winter's night falling in love at and with a country dance! A perfect poem on which to pin a Roscommon Soles show. In my own arts life, "a winter's night" seems like a good way to label the pandemic days and their story for me between late 2020 and now, the start of 2024 when I feel a sense of closure to that long "winter's night" despite the surge that has us wearing masks again here in Southern New England. Already, I feel that much is stirring beneath a new winter's on-again, off-again grip. There is a surge of energy, anticipation, and that thing with feathers, as Dickinson described "hope." I hope to write soon again and report on prep for the RS shows For a Winter's Night at The Blackstone River Theatre and The Pipes are Calling '24 at the Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC). Also, if you haven't gotten a copy of my recording Commonplaces with superb guitarist/banjoist Ed Sweeney, please visit his website edsweeneymusic.com for details. It was released in autumn 2020, just as that long winter's night began!