Don’t miss a rare opportunity to hear Tim O’Brien and Bryan Sutton perform together on stage at Chandler Music Hall on Friday October 1! O’Brien, of the bluegrass band Hot Rize, is also known to dig into his Irish roots for a traditional tune, cover Bob Dylan songs and perform his own finely-crafted compositions. His proficiency on five instruments combines with amazing vocals. From his stellar work with Ricky Skaggs, Béla Fleck and Chris Thile and his own recordings, Bryan Sutton is considered today’s premiere bluegrass guitarist.

In Tim O’Brien’s music, things come together. The uncanny intersection of traditional and contemporary elements in his songwriting, his tireless dedication to a vast and ever-expanding array of instruments, and his ongoing commitment to place himself in as many unique and challenging musical scenarios as possible has made him a key figure in today’s thriving roots music scene.

Most recently, O’Brien has been performing before capacity crowds in the band of Mark Knopfler, who described O’Brien as “a master of American folk music, Irish music, Scottish music – it doesn't matter; a fine songwriter and one of my favorite singers.”

Tim O’Brien has a host of recordings to his credit. His most recent recording Chicken & Egg, like much of his best music, exists in the spaces between: between genres, between generations, between the everyday chores that most musicians see as impediments, but which O’Brien continues to draw inspiration from. His work, born of wonder and experience, transcends circumstance while never pretending to be anything but one man’s story.

“I’m a folk musician,” he says humbly. “I gravitate towards the old sounds and I still sing a good bit of traditional material. My songs come out of that well of folk music. If you do it long enough, you can’t always tell the old from the new – it blends together. It becomes what happens between the chicken and the egg: I don’t know which came first, but it contains the whole of life.”

Bryan Sutton seemed to come out of nowhere as part of Ricky Scaggs’ return to bluegrass in 1997. Bluegrass Unlimited’s review of Bluegrass Rules! took special note of his “spellbinding solos … [which] establish him as a musician who bears close scrutiny”. Suddenly he seemed to be everywhere, hailed as one of the finest guitarists of his generation.

Few artists have come so far so fast – and yet, at the beginning of 1999, Sutton followed his heart and retired from Kentucky Thunder to devote himself to the recording work he finds so fascinating and rewarding. As a leading session guitarist, he continues to appear on numerous recordings, from gospel albums to Rhonda Vincents’ Back Home Again to millionsellers like the Dixie Chicks’ Fly. His guitar playing anchors Dolly Parton’s sensational bluegrass albums, Little Sparrow and The Grass is Blue. In the fall of 2000, Sutton was honored by the International Bluegrass Music Association as Guitar Player of the Year.

Reserved tickets for this special joint performance are $30 and $25 for adults and $25 and $20 for students. They may be ordered online at www.chandler art.org or by calling the Chandler Box Office at 802-728- 6464 between the hours of 3 and 6 PM weekdays. The performance has sponsorship support from The Point. Chandler Music Hall is wheelchair accessible.