Blakeley Burger & Grace Rogers Play Institute 193

Join us Friday, August 18th at 6PM for a musical performance by Blakeley Burger and Grace Rogers with Charlie Overman at 215 North Limestone.

Grace Rogers is a musician, poet, and essayist from Owingsville, KY. She grew up in the eastern Kentucky old time music community and has been playing traditional Kentucky music and writing songs since childhood. She moved to Louisville in 2017. From June 2022-June 2023, she was the Charlie Whitaker Memorial Apprentice under east Kentucky banjo player John Haywood. She is also a 2023 archival fellow at the Berea College studying the banjo music of Magoffin County, KY. Blakeley is a violinist and fiddle-player who seeks out versatile styles on her instrument. She received a Bachelor’s of Music in violin performance from the University of Louisville and teaches traditional fiddle music across the state at institutions such as Cowan Creek Mountain Music School, Louisville Folk School, and University of Louisville’s Suzuki Institute. Furthermore, she was selected to be a Mentor Artist of Traditional Music by the Kentucky Arts Council (2022-2023). She has performed throughout the United States with acclaimed artists such as Grayson Jenkins, Britt Taylor, The Local Honeys, Bendigo Fletcher, War, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and Michael Bublé.

Together, Grace and Blakeley blend Kentucky traditional music with contemporary techniques and feelings. Their instrumentation—primarily fiddle and banjo—calls back to the early days of old time music in Kentucky, but through dynamics and improvisation they push up against the very edges of the tradition following in the footsteps of the many central and eastern Kentucky musicians they admire.