The Buttonwood Tree Performing Arts Center
605 Main Street / PO Box 71, Middletown, CT 06457
Contact Amy Albert @ 860.347.4957
Merganser / Gracie Day at The Buttonwood Tree
Middletown, CT: On Saturday. March 18th at 8 PM, The Buttonwood Tree announces the musical showcase of Middletown-based folk group Merganser with an opening by MA-based singer-songwriter Gracie Day. Admission is $15
Merganser is a modern folk project founded by Derrik Bosse, Taylor Warinsky, and Matt Belliveau in the summer of 2021. The group plays a modern style of traditional inspired tunes that border on post-punk and Irish Trad. Traces of Andean and Ukrainian folk music can also be heard.
Matt Belliveau (guitar)has a BA in Jazz Performance and can be seen performing with The Lost Tribe occasionally. He enjoys volunteering at a horse farm on Sundays and has taken up gardening as a passionate hobby.
Derrik Bosse (winds, bass, vocals)is always looking for music off the beaten path. He has studied the folk styles of Greece, Ukraine, Turkey, Cuba, South America, and more. He incorporates these influences into his everyday playing.
Amanda Gooch (violin, vocals)is a CCSU graduate who took the leap from teaching in the public school system to teaching privately. Her main passion is performing live and jamming, in groups like The Metacomet Quartet.
Taylor Warinsky (various, vocals)is a public school music teacher with a background in classical bassoon. He and Derrik met on a jazz gig several years ago and have been working together ever since, in projects like Klezmer Fusion Collective.
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Gracie Dayreleased her first EP in November of 2017 and quickly won attention for her songwriting, singing and performances, achieving "Best New Act" in 2017 and "Best in State for CT" in 2018 at the New England Music Awards, an organization that acknowledges musical acts throughout all six states. Also, in 2018, Day was a semi-finalist in the international Unsigned Only Songwriting Contest, and nominated in the prestigious Boston Music Awards. Her song "Tennessee,” that gained tens of thousands of plays on Spotify and landed various radio placements. Recorded at the famous Sound Emporium, a legendary studio with a roster of everyone from Johnny Cash, REM, to Alabama Shakes, Gracie Day’s new EP “The Nashville Sessions” was just released in December 2019 . Gracie is currently recording her first full-length album.
Before her recent move to Massachusetts, Gracie Day lived in the greater Hartford, Connecticut area where she first started performing music and establishing herself in the arts community. Her episode of the TV show “Amplify” on Connecticut’s PBS was nominated for an Emmy in the New England Chapter. Despite winning “Best Folk Band” in CTNow’s Best of Hartford Reader’s Poll in 2017, the genre “Folk” does not quite describe the mixture of rock and soul in her sound. Day cites her parents' music of the 60’s and 70’s having the largest initial influence on her love of music.