Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light
Saturday, October 4 at 7:30 pm
Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light
Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light are a Boston-based string band making music that blends folk tradition with feminist storytelling, poetic detail, and just enough grit. At the center is Sumner’s songwriting, rooted in history, myth, and personal reckoning, carried by close harmonies, upright bass, acoustic guitar, and fiddle. The trio features Kat Wallace on fiddle and vocals and Mike Siegel on upright bass and vocals, whose playing brings both tension and tenderness to the sound. (Note: Mike is unable to join the group at Cafe Veritas; Rachel and Kat will play as a duo.)
Their sound is spare and intimate, sometimes eerie, sometimes sweet, always intentional. They call it Femericana: sharp-edged Americana with a splash of feminine rage.
Sumner has performed at the Library of Congress, where five of her original songs are now archived, and was a 2024 winner of the Kerrville New Folk competition. Her song “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison)” struck a nerve, streamed over 300,000 times and picked up by dancers, theater directors, and deep listeners who saw themselves in its story. It’s been tattooed on arms, sung in audition rooms, and carried into classrooms and protests. The kind of song people hold onto.
Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light has toured coast to coast, bringing their spellbinding live show to listening rooms, libraries, farms, and festivals across the country. They've appeared at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Earl Scruggs Festival, IBMA, and legendary folk listening rooms like Caffé Lena and Club Passim, where their shows have become a staple of the Boston folk scene.
Their latest release, The Traveling Light Sessions, reimagines Sumner’s studio album Heartless Things, recorded live around one microphone with no overdubs. Just the way they play it.
Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light are a Boston-based string band making music that blends folk tradition with feminist storytelling, poetic detail, and just enough grit. At the center is Sumner’s songwriting, rooted in history, myth, and personal reckoning, carried by close harmonies, upright bass, acoustic guitar, and fiddle. The trio features Kat Wallace on fiddle and vocals and Mike Siegel on upright bass and vocals, whose playing brings both tension and tenderness to the sound. (Note: Mike is unable to join the group at Cafe Veritas; Rachel and Kat will play as a duo.)
Their sound is spare and intimate, sometimes eerie, sometimes sweet, always intentional. They call it Femericana: sharp-edged Americana with a splash of feminine rage.
Sumner has performed at the Library of Congress, where five of her original songs are now archived, and was a 2024 winner of the Kerrville New Folk competition. Her song “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison)” struck a nerve, streamed over 300,000 times and picked up by dancers, theater directors, and deep listeners who saw themselves in its story. It’s been tattooed on arms, sung in audition rooms, and carried into classrooms and protests. The kind of song people hold onto.
Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light has toured coast to coast, bringing their spellbinding live show to listening rooms, libraries, farms, and festivals across the country. They've appeared at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Earl Scruggs Festival, IBMA, and legendary folk listening rooms like Caffé Lena and Club Passim, where their shows have become a staple of the Boston folk scene.
Their latest release, The Traveling Light Sessions, reimagines Sumner’s studio album Heartless Things, recorded live around one microphone with no overdubs. Just the way they play it.
Lisa Bigwood
Lisa Bigwood’s songwriting and intense and memorable performances took her from her world as a rural housewife and nurse to the life of a writer and musician. Her previous life came along for the ride, a richness of experience that inhabits her music.
Lisa claims she was born to be a songwriter, and that’s probably true. Crossroads magazine said in a review, “One gets the sense that the music she’s creating is an insistent force that she could no more hold back than a passerby could resist listening.”
This courageous message comes through, and when she writes of joy and laughter and fun, which she does, she means it, and the listener can’t miss that feeling. She laughs and jokes a lot on stage, which is illuminating, given the subject matter she obviously knows intimately.
Her first two studio albums were on the Grammy nominee consideration list, each in the categories of Best Contemporary Folk Album and Album of the Year. They made her a Telluride Troubadour Finalist, Kerrville New Folk Finalist, Chris Austin Memorial Songwriting winner at Merlefest, and took her around the country showcasing her songs. Her music is played on folk radio from New Haven to Cleveland, Chicago to Salt Lake City, Santa Cruz, Guam, and the Faroe Islands.
Of all this attention, she says, “I have found it very refreshing that in this time of mass-programmed media, there are lots of real people out there listening. People who care about words and music. People who know real when they hear it."
Lisa Bigwood’s songwriting and intense and memorable performances took her from her world as a rural housewife and nurse to the life of a writer and musician. Her previous life came along for the ride, a richness of experience that inhabits her music.
Lisa claims she was born to be a songwriter, and that’s probably true. Crossroads magazine said in a review, “One gets the sense that the music she’s creating is an insistent force that she could no more hold back than a passerby could resist listening.”
This courageous message comes through, and when she writes of joy and laughter and fun, which she does, she means it, and the listener can’t miss that feeling. She laughs and jokes a lot on stage, which is illuminating, given the subject matter she obviously knows intimately.
Her first two studio albums were on the Grammy nominee consideration list, each in the categories of Best Contemporary Folk Album and Album of the Year. They made her a Telluride Troubadour Finalist, Kerrville New Folk Finalist, Chris Austin Memorial Songwriting winner at Merlefest, and took her around the country showcasing her songs. Her music is played on folk radio from New Haven to Cleveland, Chicago to Salt Lake City, Santa Cruz, Guam, and the Faroe Islands.
Of all this attention, she says, “I have found it very refreshing that in this time of mass-programmed media, there are lots of real people out there listening. People who care about words and music. People who know real when they hear it."