REIMAGINING THE STRING BAND
At the crossroads of South American folk music and Northern Americana you will find Acoustic Nomads, a band of rising stars taking the acoustic music scene by storm.
Acoustic Nomads interweaves contemporary improvisation and newgrass with folkloric traditions from North and South America, with influences spanning from Appalachia to Argentina.
The band's unique sound is a result of the players harnessing these varied musical interests and joyously exploring uncharted musical territory together.
Since forming in 2019, Acoustic Nomads has headlined performances at WBUR Cityspace in Boston, Club Passim in Cambridge, Hartford’s Baby Grand Jazz Series, Arts at the Armory in Somerville, Barnarts’ Feast & Field Series in Barnard VT, and performed at major bluegrass festivals including Freshgrass, Grey Fox, and Joe Val.
Their performances maintain the spirit of folkloric music while delving into modern jazz improvisation and sophisticated chamber music arrangements, showing how different cultures can come together and join in the celebration of humanity through art.
Acoustic Nomads’ two most recent albums, “The Abominable Stringband Vol. 1 & 2,” are available for streaming and purchase wherever you get your music!
Following in the footsteps of world music giants like The Silk Road Project, Acoustic Nomads seeks to change the world through musical collaboration. Acoustic Nomads goal is to highlight the diversity within and commonality between musical traditions, creating curious, compassionate fans of global music all over the world.
Origins
Acoustic Nomads was originally conceived by Noah Harrington and Maurizio Fiore Salas as "Noah y Maurizio", later changed to "Noah y Maurizio's Acoustic Nomads," and finally shortened to simply "Acoustic Nomads."
The idea for Acoustic Nomads, a single project combining stylistically different music and players, was conceived by Noah Harrington during his time at the musical melting pots of Berklee College of Music and the Acoustic Music Seminar (AMS) in Savannah Georgia.
Noah and Maurizio met while studying Jazz Composition and Harmony at Berklee, and began putting on shows together featuring their original music with more traditional jazz bands (horns, percussion, etc).
Also at Berklee, Harrington performed regularly with mandolinistEthan Setiawan in the Newgrass band Octopladd, and with Brazilian guitarist João Perrusi in a number of different musical groups.
Noah met fiddler Clara Chisholm and cellist Parker Ousley at Acoustic Music Seminar 2018, where the three performed together multiple times, workshopping and performing each other's tunes in a frenzied week of musical activity.
After Noah's return to Berklee that spring, he began planning to organize a concert with Maurizio to feature their compositions with a non-traditional acoustic string-band.
The stars aligned when fiddler Clara Chisholm came to Boston for a week in the spring of 2019.
Noah and Maurizio seized the moment, bringing together Ethan Setiawan (mandolin), Parker Ousley (cello), and João Perrusi (guitar) for three concerts and an impromptu recording session at a home studio in Brighton.
Even at this very beginning stage, the chemistry was electric, and the group decided to keep going after that, bringing on fiddle whiz Sofia Chiarandini to fill the fiddle chair when Clara returned to Vancouver.
In 2021 the group recorded 18 original pieces/arrangements at Great North Sound Society Studio in Parsonsfield, Maine. These recordings would later become "The Abominable Stringband Vol. 1 & 2," released in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Since then, Perrusi and Ousley have moved away to pursue other projects, and "Acoustic Nomads" has evolved into a sleek quartet, blending and bending genre, and highlighting the diversity within music from around the Americas.
You can reach out to book Acoustic Nomads at the email below, where you will also find our Subscribe Form, which you can fill out to be added to our mailing list and receive updates on performances and releases!