Jack Straw Fall Artist Showcase
Free
- Lindsey Strand-Polyak, violin
- Randal Bays, fiddle
- Clint Dye, guitar
- Nic Masangkay, piano, keyboards, & voice
- Josh Nucci, guitar
- Medejin
Jack Straw Cultural Center kicks off the fall with an afternoon of music from Jack Straw Resident Artists Randal Bays and Clint Dye, Nic Masangkay, Medejin, Josh Nucci and friends, and Lindsey Strand-Polyak.
About Lindsey Strand-Polyak, violin
Lindsey Strand-Polyak divides her time between viola and violin and homes in Los Angeles and on Whidbey Island. Director of the San Francisco Early Music Society's Summer Baroque Workshop, she appears with Baroque Music Montana, Bach Collegium San Diego, Musica Angelica, Sinfonia Spirituosa, Bitterroot Baroque, Baroque Festival Corona del Mar, the Oregon Bach Festival, Byron Schenkman & Friends, the Salish Sea Early Music Festival and as principal violist with Seattle Baroque Orchestra. She also serves on the boards of Early Music Seattle as the SBO liaison and Pacific Northwest Viols, and holds a PhD/MM in musicology and violin performance from UCLA.
https://www.strandpolyak.com/About Randal Bays, fiddle
Randal Bays is an American born, Irish style fiddler who brings power and passion to the old tradition. He's well known on both sides of the Atlantic for his fiery fiddling and his devotion to the traditional style of playing. He has a special love for the fiddle traditions of Counties Clare and Galway, where he's spent many a night playing tunes with the masters of that intricate music. Randal has recorded and toured in the U.S., Ireland, and Europe with such musicians as Martin Hayes, James Keane and Daithà Sproule (Fingal), James Kelly, and many more. In 2021 he received the Irish Artist in America Achievement Award from O'Flaherty Irish Music in Texas. Randal lives in the Seattle area and is the Artistic Director of Cascadia Irish Music Week.
As Fiddler Magazine says, "Randal Bays is one of the finest Irish fiddlers one could ever hope to hear."
https://www.randalbays.com/About Clint Dye, guitar
Guitarist Clint Dye is a fairly recent addition to the Seattle Irish music community. His great musicality, rhythm, and style have made him very welcome in sessions and concerts around the Northwest. Clint got his start playing traditional Irish music by accompanying step dancers and singers in the Busch Gardens show Celtic Fyre in Williamsburg, VA. During this time, he began to cut his teeth in Irish music sessions and worked in small groups. He has appeared at numerous festivals and events on the east coast and since relocating to Seattle has worked with several local bands.
https://www.facebook.com/ClintDyeMusic/About Nic Masangkay, piano, keyboards, & voice
Nic Masangkay is a Seattle-based community musician and poet. They graduated in 2016 from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Notable highlights include Buzzfeed, Autostraddle, and Tumblr features for poem My Gender Is for Mothers; 2018 Jack Straw Cultural Center Artist Assistance Program Resident; 2019 4Culture Arc Artist Fellow; and independent singer-songwriter-producer alt-pop releases with EP Dark at Dusk: the Final Suicide (2019), singles 'Star' (2021), and 'Mothers' (2022). Aside from their solo work, Masangkay regularly collaborates with music, movement, and film artists, for remixing, scoring, production, and live sound. As they move to create more intergenerational and all-ages art, working with young people as a teaching artist is a budding focus of their practice. In their music, poetry, collaborations, teaching, and everyday life, Nic generously shares their perspective on the transformative potential of cultural work.
https://nicmasangkay.com/About Josh Nucci, guitar
Joshua Nucci is a 22 year old African American, Blackfoot Indian, Brazilian, Italian, and Portuguese visual artist, musician, and community organizer from Seattle, WA. "Making music is a passion of mine. Playing especially with others brings me so much joy because it allows me to free my consciousness and connect with others in both spoken and unspoken ways. My ultimate goal is to bring people together, to create, and tell stories that uplift and inspire. It is my hope to create a platform and body of work in collaboration with community members I have met and will continue to meet during my lifetime."
https://www.jackstraw.org/artist/josh-nucci/About Medejin
Seattle's Medejin (pronounced meh-deh-JEAN) creates lush, ethereal, dreamwave that evokes a sense of nostalgia and melancholy. Led by songwriter Jenn Taranto (vocals/guitar/keys) with Rebecca Gutterman (guitar), Ramsey Troxel (bass), and Matthew Cooke (backing vocals/drums), their sound is euphoric with a disarming intimacy that tends to leave listeners quietly, beautifully, devastated.
https://medejin-music.bandcamp.com/