Acoustic duo Al Petteway and Amy White will celebrate 25 years of music together at a special Institute of Musical Traditions (IMT) concert on Saturday evening, November 23rd. Favorites of the IMT crowd (and former Washington, DC-area residents before a move to the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina), these are musicians sure to fill the room at St. Marks in Rockville, the main IMT concert venue where I’ve heard them live through the years.

Al and Amy’s music is eclectic yet uniformly lovely on the ears. Petteway is an award-winning fingerstyle guitarist (voted one of the Top 50 Guitarists of all time by the readers of Acoustic Guitar Magazine) while Amy is a composer and singer who is no slouch on the instrumental chops as well. Their repertoire has been described as “original, traditional, contemporary Celtic- and Appalachian-influenced music with occasional nods to Blues, New Age, and Jazz.” That about sums it up.

Al and Amy have provided music for the soundtrack for several Ken Burns documentaries, most notably The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. Both are award-winning photographers, and Winter in the Blue Ridge Mountains showcases their music and photography. I also recommend a UNC-TV piece on the duo, which gives the background on their life and work, how they met, the range of their interests, and includes a lovely vignette about how Al brought the adult Amy and her father—an oboist with the Nashville Symphony—together after having never played music with each other in over three decades.

This is lovely music for the heart. Recommended.

More to come…

DJB

UPDATE: The IMT concert on Saturday evening was beautiful, with Al and Amy playing to a full house; yet, it had the feeling as if they were in a living room with a group of friends. One of the most beautiful new tunes for me was Amy’s Never Got to Say Goodbye. Thanks to these two talented musicians, and to IMT, as always, for their wonderful concert series.