by Nicholas Stevens

In recent years, Northeast Ohioans have had many opportunities to explore the overlaps between early music and certain folk traditions. In the “crossover” program Sugarloaf Mountain, Apollo’s Fire zeroed in on Appalachia as a region where British music of centuries past seemed to reappear transfigured, thanks to oral traditions of Scots-Irish migrants. In its touring program “Adew Dundee,” the Baltimore Consort traces a similar path, with emphasis on the Scots part of the lineage. At Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Akron last weekend, they treated music from the Scottish Renaissance with charm and virtuosity —  and melded the repertoire with grooves and tunes from later folk idioms. [Read more…]