Summer Creekside Music at Sylvester Manor

Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island presents a “Summer Creekside Concert” on Saturday, August 26, at 5 p.m. featuring award-winning musician Jake Blount performing a special one-man show with New York’s New Moon Acoustic Blues opening.

A powerfully gifted musician and a scholar of Black American music, Jake Blount speaks passionately about the African roots of the banjo and the subtle, yet profound ways African Americans have shaped and defined the amorphous categories of roots music and Americana. On stage, each song he plays is chosen for a reason — because it highlights important elements about the stories we tell ourselves of our shared history and our endlessly complicated present moment.

Blount is a musician and scholar based in Providence, Rhode Island. He is a 2020 recipient of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize and a two-time winner of the Appalachian String Band Music Festival (better known as Clifftop). A specialist in the early folk music of Black Americans, Blount is a skilled performer of spirituals, blues and string band repertoire. Blount has performed at the Kennedy Center, the Newport Folk Festival, NPR’s Tiny Desk, and numerous other venues across and beyond U.S. His most recent album, “The New Faith,” is the latest installment of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings’ African American Legacy Series.

Blount studied under modern masters of old-time music: Bruce Molsky, Judy Hyman (of the Horse Flies), and Rhiannon Giddens and Hubby Jenkins (of the GRAMMY-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops). Most recently, Blount has been nominated for Artist of the Year at the 2023 International Folk Music Awards.

The New Moon Acoustic Blues is a New York based high energy traditional blues outfit led by guitarist and singer Karl Schwarz. The band performs all manner of Acoustic Blues typified by artists such as the Reverend Gary Davis, Robert Johnson and RL Burnside. Joining Karl on stage, his good friend and blues harmonica player, David A. Barnes, of James Blood Ulmer’s Memphis Blood. New Moon Acoustic Blues never fails to resurrect on stage the powerful feelings of Hill Country, Delta and Piedmont Blues.

Tickets for the concert are $25 (free for ages 10 and under). Gates open at 4 p.m., music begins at 5 p.m. Sylvester Manor Creekside Concerts are rain or shine outdoor events. Guests are encouraged to bring a beach chair or blanket to sit on and are welcome to bring their own food and drink to picnic. Additionally, The Roaming Islander Food Truck will be on site and wine and beer will also be available for purchase.

Sylvester Manor is at 80 North Ferry Road, Shelter Island. For more information, visit sylvestermanor.org.