Home | About | Newsletter | Our Music | Show Schedule | Booking | Reviews | Gallery | Bio | Contact | Sitemap

Folk Music - Tom & Mary Kay Aufrance

[:p]

Borders Bookstore Cafe
Sierra-Plumas & Nevada Wild West Fairs

Thank you!

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.

 Gairin on Youtube  Gairin on Myspace  Gairin on Download.com Gairin on Amazon.com Gairin on iTunes  CDBaby Gairin Site  iSound Gairin Site
Home | About | Newsletter | Our Music | Show Schedule | Booking | Reviews | Gallery | Bio | Contact | Sitemap

Contact us for music: Email or Call (775) 841-1193


License our music through Pump Audio
License works by Mary Kay Aufrance, BMI
 License our music through BMI

© 2004-2010 Tom and Mary Kay Aufrance Carson City, NV All Rights Reserved
This Lake Tahoe area web site site powered by Aufrance Associates

Click to hear our music
CDs &
Music Book/CD
Old Time Music Sampler Shamrocks Thistles & Silver Spurs
23 Songs and Tunes 23 Songs & Tunes Music Book & CD Set
Musical Dreams CD Musical Dreams CD
Ramblin Irishman Irish and Scottish Celtic Music CD Ramblin Irishman CD
In the Moon of Wintertime Christmas Music CD In the Moon of Wintertime: Christmas Music

We have performed at:

Nevada Soc. of Scot. Clans Robert Burns Supper Circus Circus Reno - Sierra Philharmonic League 4th of July with the Reno Philharmonic - Sierra-Plumas County Fair - Portola Railroad Days - Carson City Rendezvous - Nevada State Railroad Museum - Sons and Daughters of Erin - Nevada Society of Scottish Clans - Reno Irish Dance Company - Brewery Arts Center - Tahoe-Tallac Association Valhalla Grand Hall & The Boathouse - Reno Artown Events - Ceol Irish Pub, Reno - Reno Celtic Celebration - Marriott Hotels Reno & Tahoe - John Ascuaga's Nugget - Channel 10 Public Access TV, Carson City

and more!
Read our reviews
...