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About Us
Tom and Mary Kay Aufrance,
BMI, are husband-and-wife musicians and singer-songwriters
from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Carson
City, Nevada. You will find them performing close to home
on festival stages and also in intimate settings, making
music for coffee shop or restaurant audiences.
People know us as two singers who blend
our voices as we do our hearts. We offer both
traditional and original music when the occasion fits. Our music is acoustic and
it's filled with the Americana and Celtic influences
we grew up with on the north edge of the Appalachian mountains.
That's where Tom's family originally farmed and Mary Kay's grandpa mined coal.
They were musicians, too. Tom's great great grandfather played
in the Ohio Regiment Band during the Civil War, and his
mom learned to play the bass violin. Mary Kay's grandpa
entertained friends with his bouzouki that he'd brought
over from the old country, one of her cousins is in the
polka hall of fame, and another cousin has been a Broadway
star for over 30 years!
Our folk music fits many moods and events.
We have performed for rogues in pubs and for genteel
audiences with symphonies. We have done our show on dusty
lanes in faire villages, and we have also played with the
wind in our hair on outdoor stages as well as in the confines
of the rehab. unit of our local hospital.
We have been performing and writing music
together for a couple of decades. Mary Kay's original music
fills one of our CDs Musical Dreams. Her songs and tunes
range from the ethereal mood music of Musical Dreams and
Go Ask the Rain, her 911 ballad, to her rollicking ballad of Mr. Potato
Head. We also have several other CDs and a music book that
feature Celtic and American Folk music. Since 2005, we have released four CDs - Ramblin' Irishman,
In the Moon of Wintertime: Christmas Music, Musical Dreams
and Shamrocks, Thistles and Silver Spurs. In 2009 we also
published a music book with our arrangements of the songs
on our Ramblin' Irishman CD plus more easy-to play but still
interesting arrangements.
We got our start doing musical theatrics
at Northern California Renaissance faires and other events. Our
first group, the Motley Madrigals, was a 12-member part singing
a cappella group that made the rounds of the
Ren Faires. The Motlies also debuted our original melodies and lyrics,
including Mary Kay's Lake Tahoe Song and Tom's outlandish Stasera Dorme il Leone: The
Lion Sleeps Tonight. The Motley Madrigals holds the
distinction of having been the the first to perform with Motlie Lucy DuPertuis playing Lucky Baldwin's restored
Steinway piano in the Valhalla Grand Hall at Lake Tahoe.
In addition to singing, Tom also plays 6
and 12-string guitars, Irish bouzouki, mandolin and banjo.
He got his first mandolin when he was a college student, because
it was small enough to play it in the front seat of his
car while working on his night job as a security guard.
Mary Kay also plays accordion. Her beginnings in music included
a variety of musical arts, starting with dance, piano, guitar
and violin, but what finally took was vocals and
accordion. But, the first instrument for both of us was actually the
plastic flutophone that the Ohio school system handed out
as part of our early music eductation. (Tom still has his flutophone.)
We also give back to
our community with twice-a-month shows for old folks, and
we have done a little teaching. In 2006 we became part of
a really fun State of Nevada and Carson City Symphony program
called Strings in the Schools. Through 2008, we helped to
spread the enjoyment of playing tunes to the program's nearly
80 students.
Lately we have had great success with our
Slim and Minnie act, which is becoming popular at county
fairs and other events where we add some just-plain-folks
humor to our show that includes American folk, country western,
pioneer, Gold Rush era and even some Hollywood cowboy songs.
In 2011, an exciting highlight was when
Director Sue Jesch of Strings in the Schools invited us
to be the workshop instructors for the Celtic Workshop.
For this day-long event and performance, we worked with
nearly 60 students of all ages from grade school through
retirement age. Our approach to teaching Celtic styles was
to help the students to form their own Celtic bands! During
the workshop we formed 10 new Celtic bands, and each band
was featured during a crowd pleasing performance that took
place at the end of the day.
You are welcome to enjoy our music at the
Carson City Grandma Hattie's Restaurant, the old folks home
or one of the many county & community faires around
Northern Nevada and California.
Just click on a link in the Green bar below
for more information. Contact us: (775) 841-1193.
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