Medusa Quartet | Cambridge, IL

🍉 6pm - potluck/social hour

🎤 7pm - show

💵 $20-30 suggested donation

👨‍👩‍👧 All ages, family-friendly

🎫 Get Tickets at xroadscc.org/events!

🌧️ Rain location: Bishop Hill Creative Commons

https://medusaquartet.com/

https://youtu.be/ehqZ59rmGOo

Medusa is:

Marta Solek (she/her) - Polish fidel and suka, Greek lira, cello

Georgia Hathaway (they/them) - violin

Saskia Tomkins (she/her) - nyckelharpa, violin

Lea Kirstein (she/they) - cello, viola

Get ready to stomp your feet, laugh, cry, and hear sounds you've never heard before with Medusa. Wielding a sound that would turn classical music scholars to stone, these four folk musicians are reimagining the string quartet. By inviting back voices previously regarded as too ugly for “polite society,” Medusa tempts us to redefine what is beautiful.

With their Canadian Folk Music Award (CFMA) Nominated debut album, Medusa’s dynamic arrangement style cross-pollinates the sounds of Middle Eastern, Scandinavian, Celtic, Appalachian, and Eastern European music, as well as original tunes, to create something previously unheard. With this debut release, the band connects audiences across dividing lines of culture and identity to reveal the common threads beneath.

Medusa is Georgia Hathaway, Lea Kirstein, Marta Sołek, and Saskia Tomkins. For these four seasoned string players, whose collective experience as side players in successful bands spans decades, Medusa is a refuge for natural creation. Their immediate and electrifying connection is transmuted through a common string language, a love of enigmatic and obscure folk fiddles, and their personal stories of navigating society’s liminal spaces.

One of the most misunderstood figures in ancient mythology, Medusa was wrongfully punished and cast out for being the victim of a violent act, but is remembered solely for her frightful ugliness and lithifying gaze. Through their personal narratives of alienation due to racism, sexism, immigration, queerness, and disability, Medusa the band aims to retell this story by bringing back what has been cast out. Marta Solek and Saskia Tomkins resurrect the Suka, the Płock fidel, and the Nyckelharpa - forgotten folk fiddles with disreputable connotations that were rejected for centuries in their home countries of Poland and Sweden.

Instead of a snake-haired Gorgon, they see Medusa as a symbol of vision, power, and inclusivity, and a source of inspiration for anyone who has been denied their true self.

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The potluck is optional, but it is a great chance to connect others in the audience and maybe even share a meal with the artist. It also helps ensure the artist isn't having to have a meal from a gas station. We'll provide the plates, bowls, silverware, napkins, and, if you need it, serving spoons. Feel free to bring anything you'd like--an entrée, appetizer, dessert, or drink to share. Bring something you will enjoy eating, because if you enjoy it, it is likely others will as well.

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This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, through federal funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Humanities, and the Doris and Ken Kolb Charitable Trust.