Mandomorphosis: Orville Johnson, Matt Sircely, Scott Schaffer and Michael Connolly
When: PST
Tickets: $13 advance, $15 at the door
Click here to purchase advance tickets.
In 2009, producer and musician Scott Schaffer brought together seven mandolin players from across the United States to create a record of creative mandolin music. The resulting project, called Mandomorphosis, is a genre-spanning tour through jazz, bluegrass, folk, and free-spirited improvisation. Please join us for the project’s West Coast CD release of its debut album, 2010.
In attendance will be the Western component of the Mandomorphosis project: Orville Johnson, Matt Sircely, Michael Connolly and Scott Schaffer. Expect a high-energy evening of improvised instrumental music focused on mandolin, but also featuring dobro, fiddle, tenor guitar, and more!
“Intricate… energetic… intriguing… brilliant… I highly recommend 2010 for its varied musical styles and approaches, creativity and overall sound. 4 Stars (out of 5)”
-Wildy Haskell, Wildy’s World (Nov 16, 2009)
“These cats rock right in the pocket. Progressive bluegrass ala the Bela Fleck ilk with energy and good vibes for all that just keep coming… This is certainly a winner for adult ears on the prowl for something new and different… Hot stuff that just doesn’t wear out its welcome.”
-Chris Spector, Midwest Record (Nov 13, 2009)
The Players
Orville Johnson was born in 1953 in Edwardsville, Illinois and came up on the St. Louis, Missouri music scene, where he was exposed to and participated in a variety of blues, bluegrass and American roots music. He began singing in his Pentecostal church as a young boy, in rock bands in middle school, then took up the guitar at 17,with early influences from Doc Watson, Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, and Chuck Berry. In the early 1970’s, Orville spent several seasons playing bluegrass on the SS Julia Belle Swain, a period-piece Mississippi river steamboat plying the inland waterways, with his group the Steamboat Ramblers.
Johnson, known for his dobro and slide guitar stylings and vocal acrobatics, has played on over 100 albums. He has appeared on Garrison Keilor’s Prairie Home Companion, Jay Leno’s Tonight Show and was featured in the 1997 film Georgia with Mare Winningham. His musical expertise can also be heard on the Microsoft CD-ROMs Musical Instruments of the World and the Complete Encyclopedia of Baseball. He teaches as well at the International Guitar Seminar, Pt. Townsend Country Blues Week and Puget Sound Guitar Workshop.
Johnson released 4 recordings in the 1990’s: The World According to Orville (1990) Blueprint for the Blues (1998) Slide & Joy (1999) an all-instrumental dobro tour de force and Kings of Mongrel Folk (1997) with Mark Graham. He also appeared on 4 discs with the File’ Gumbo Zydeco Band and produced Whose World Is This (1997) for Jim Page and Inner Life (1999) for Mark Graham. In the 21st century, he has released Freehand, a new Kings of Mongrel Folk disc, Still Goin’ Strong, and been featured in the soundtracks of PBS’ Frontier House and the Peter Fonda flick The Wooly Boys as well as the compilation CD Legends of the Incredible Lap Steel Guitar.
Matt Sircely is a creative mandolinist, songwriter and independent journalist living in Port Townsend, Washington. Sircely improvises fluently, composes 
prolifically and is familiar with a diversity of musical traditions.
At the age of 32, versatility with the mandolin has earned Matt Sircely gigs and guest appearances with some of the finest acoustic musicians on the continent. In late 2008, Sircely performed in the debut of bass legend Buell Neidlinger’s Prairie Ramblers in Washington State, and recorded electric mandolin with Kelley Breidling’s classic country group Kelley and the Cowboys in a session produced by Joel Savoy in Louisiana, featuring an all-star lineup from around the country.
In 2000, he joined Hot Club Sandwich, a young band of creative individuals who shared a love of Django Reinhardt’s music and the Gypsy jazz it spawned. Operating as a collective, Hot Club Sandwich also incorporates other influences that members bring into the mix, including Latin American folkloric traditions. Within two years, the group was performing at some of the early Gypsy jazz festivals to appear on the West Coast.
In 2005, David Grisman asked him to compile the liner notes for his Tone Poets project, a historic assembly of 42 musicians, each playing Grisman’s mandolin or guitar. In the same year, Sircely began contributing to the Fretboard Journal and Strings, finding deep inspiration in researching the lives and work of some his musical heroes like Wade Mainer, Andy Statman and Juan Reynoso.
In 2008, Sircely contributed an original composition to Galen Garwood’s short film Ed & Ed, which first appeared at the Port Townsend Film Festival. Two of his compositions, written to accompany the poetry of the beloved James Broughton, were included in ‘Letters from James,’ a film by Garwood and Rowan James which was the first film to appear at the first PTFF. Entering into 2009, Sircely is continuing to hone his solo material in anticipation of his first solo release.
Scott Schaffer’s 30-year career in music defines eclecticism. He has played bass, guitar, mandolin and a variety of other instruments in bands and genres ranging from jazz, to punk rock, to traditional folk, to experimental music. He has produced a dozen CDs and two movie soundtracks, and specializes in bringing together musicians of different backgrounds to a common purpose. In this vein, his most recent project is MandoMorphosis, a creative collaboration of seven mandolinists.
Through the 1990s, Scott co-led quirky and undefinable Pennsylvania-based string band Bala Hounds. He later produced three critically acclaimed records as a member of improvisational group Edge City Collective. More recently, he recorded a soundtrack of original music for the feature film Port of Angels, which premiered at the 2009 Idaho Film Festival.
A versatile multi-instrumentalist, performer, and teacher, Michael Connolly has been steeped in acoustic music since his childhood in Memphis, Tennessee. While his most called-for instruments are fiddle, mandolin, and accordion, Michael also performs and records on Hammond organ, piano, uilleann pipes, tinwhistle, harp, and guitar.
Michael’s familiarity with a range of genres from classical to jazz, Irish to old-time has landed him in a number of performance situations from recording with the University of Michigan Symphony to playing celidh dances in Saint Paul pubs to sharing the stage with the Indigo Girls. As a sideman, Michael has backed musicians such as Coyote Grace, Korby Lenker, Captain Gravel, Amber Darland, The Starlings, Kate Graves and others.
