Picture this: a mandolin walks into an orchard.
No, this isn’t the setup to a joke – it’s Wednesday, August 13, when Darren Nicholson brings his trio to The Farm at Old Edwards, carrying 15 years of Balsam Range stories in his back pocket and something entirely new tucked behind his ear.
Nicholson has spent the last couple of years doing something musicians rarely get to do: hit the reset button on purpose.
After helping Balsam Range collect two IBMA Entertainer of the Year awards and enough accolades to wallpaper a recording studio, he walked away. “I don’t want to be a star anymore,” Nicholson has said, “I want to make music that enriches other people’s lives.”
What he found was fiddle wizard Aynsley Porchak, the only person alive who can claim Grand Master championships on both sides of the Canadian border – a feat roughly equivalent to being fluent in two different dialects of magic.
Then there’s Avery Welter, who spent his childhood splitting time between Pittsburgh Symphony rehearsals and backyard bluegrass jams, proof that some people are born bilingual in beautiful sounds.
Together, they’ve created what you might call “bluegrass without borders” — music that honors its mountain roots while refusing to be fenced in by them.
Nicholson calls it, “hillbilly soul,” but that undersells the alchemy. This is what happens when three musicians decide that tradition isn’t a museum piece to be preserved under glass, but a living thing that grows stronger when it’s allowed to breathe.
The trio arrives in Highlands carrying Nicholson’s latest EP “Wanderer,” a collection of songs that sound like they were written by someone who finally stopped trying to impress people and started trying to reach them instead.
Four years sober, Grammy-nominated, thirteen IBMA awards deep, he’s discovered something counter-intuitive: the less you need the music to prove something about you, the more it can say about everyone else.
There’s something fitting about catching them in an orchard, surrounded by trees that know a thing or two about seasonal change and patient growth. Like those apple trees, the best music often comes from knowing when to let go of what was and trust what’s coming. Nicholson and his companions have learned that lesson well.
Doors open at 6:00 P.M. with music from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. Tickets are $25 for Old Edwards guests and members, and $50 for the public. Reserve your seats at oldedwardshospitality.com.
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