Name: Davina and the Vagabonds
Start: 2024-02-02T19:00:00
Location: Dakota

Davina Sowers

Dakota

Three-time Grammy winning composer and fiddler Mark O’Connor has created several arrangements of Christmas classics. Here, he fashions a wondrous mixture of both instrumental and vocal music in bluegrass and other American music genres. The show features fresh takes on traditional songs with a few original compositions included. His renditions are playful and joyous, but can be strikingly earnest too. Mark’s touring ensemble includes his wife Maggie O’Connor on fiddle and vocals. Additionally, he will bring a variety of guest musicians on each tour.

Mark O’Connor’s Appalachian Christmas

A Minnesota-based tribute to the greatest rock band of all time: The Rolling Stones. These red-blooded ramblers aren’t just a cover band: they’re a full-blown rock ‘n’ roll experience. Here, this group is fueled by friendship, swagger, and a deep love for the early-era Stones. The Rolling Stoners bring the hits (and deep cuts) to life with indulgent, high-energy performances that pack dance floors and light-up nights.

The Rolling Stoners

Much like the music, the story spurns era, expectation, and classification. The often unbelievable, sometimes harrowing, and wholly inspiring journey of Davina Sowers gave birth to her eponymous band Davina and The Vagabonds in 2004. As the tale goes, she grew up in the economically depressed Allegheny town of Altoona, PA, which she now describes as “awesome in the industrial era, but horrible for high school.” She was adopted by her much older stepfather when he was in his 80s; he passed away when she was just 13. Through him and his Edison phonograph, she first heard The Ink Spots, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong and Louis Prima, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and many others. “Great man. He was my angel and still is,” she says.