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About Us
Tom and
Mary Kay Aufrance, BMI husband-and-wife musicians
and singer-songwriters from the foothills of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains in Carson City, NV. You
will find them performing close to home on festival stages
and also in intimate settings, making music for coffee shop
or pub audiences.
People know us as two singers who blend
our voices as we do our hearts. Our original arrangements
and harmonies extend musical traditions, and we have never
tried to immitate anybody else, so we don't always fit any
particular niche. But you will hear influences from the
very beginnings of folk music starting with the origins
of singing from pre-Renaissance choral times and also including
the American & Celtic iinfluences of where we grew up
on the north edge of the Appalacian mountains, where Tom's
family farmed and Mary Kay's grandpa mined coal. That is
when they were't playing in the Ohio Regiment Band during
the Civil War or on a hand made bouzouki brought over from
the old country.
Folk music fits many
moods and events. We
have performed for rogues in pubs as well as 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
offer both traditional and original music when the occasion
fits. Mary Kay's original music fills our new CD Musical
Dreams. Her songs and tunes range from the ethereal mood
music of Musical Dreams and Go Ask the Rain -to- her rollicking
ballad of Mr. Potato Head.
We have been performing and writing music
together for a couple of decades. We got our start doing
Renaissance faires and Tahoe-Tallac Association events at
Lake Tahoe. Our first group was the Motley Madrigals, a
part singing group that made the rounds of the Ren. Faires.
The Motleys debuted our original melodies
and lyrics, including her Lake Tahoe Song and Tom's outlandish
irreverent arrangements, like his Stasera Dorme il Leone!
(The Lion Sleeps Tonight done Italian Renaissance style.)
In addition to singing, Tom also plays 6
and 12-string guitars, Irish bouzouki and mandolin. He got
his first mandolin as 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.
(We forgot to tell you that we both played flutophone as
kids!)
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.
We started recording in 2005, and 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 arrangments of the songs on our Ramblin' Irishman
CD plus more easy-to play but still interesting arrangments.
Lately you can find us performing at the
local Borders Bookstore Coffee Shop, at the old folks home
or in one of the many county & community faires around
Northern Nevada and California. Or, you might find us enjoying
someone else's playing at one of the local contra dances
whenever we can!
Just click on a link in the Green bar below
for more information. Contact us: (775) 841-1193.
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