Tony Watt and Southeast Expressway

Bluegrass Concert with Tony Watt & Southeast Expressway

The 2023–2024 concert season comes to a rousing, toe-tapping close with a performance by acclaimed bluegrass artist Tony Watt & Southeast Expressway, Friday, March 22nd, at 8 pm. The concert will be held in the sanctuary. It will also be livestreamed HERE.

Taking their name from the north-south thoroughfare through Boston, Watt and his group make “hard-driving” bluegrass music. “As anyone who’s ever been on the Southeast Expressway at rush hour would expect,” says Watt, the group “can definitely jam!”

Watt is an award-winning flatpicking guitarist and mandolinist. He has played throughout North America and Europe and at the Grand Ole Opry. In addition to performing, Watt is Vice President of the Boston Bluegrass Union and is on the faculty at Berklee College of Music. He is also host of Bluegrass Tuesdays at Lily P’s in Cambridge, one of the longest-running and most successful bluegrass music nights in the country. Watt will be joined on the Winchester stage by Steve Roy on upright bass, Devon Gardner on fiddle, G Rockwell on banjo, and Quinn Eastburn on mandolin.

Steve Roy plays and teaches upright bass, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, and ukulele and is fluent in an array of musical styles. As a sideman, he has toured internationally with many acoustic artists, including Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, Molly Tuttle, Joe K. Walsh, and Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen. Fiddler Devon Gardner is part of a new wave of young musicians and composers who blend traditional bluegrass with contemporary songwriting. He has performed throughout the Northeast with the bluegrass string band Pretty Saro, So Blue, and Red Luck. G Rockwell a multi-instrumentalist (banjo, mandolin, guitar), vocalist, composer, teacher, and bandleader. His unique bluegrass style derives from multiple influences, including, jazz, folk, Celtic, and Middle Eastern tunes. Quinn Eastburn began wowing audiences with his fiddle playing by the age of four. A versatile and facile fiddle and mandolin player, Quinn performs regularly in folk, rock, and bluegrass groups and with the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.

Suggested donations at the door are $20 for adults, $15 for seniors, and $5 for students. Masks are optional. The venue is handicapped accessible, and street parking is available. For a link to the livestreamed concert, go to https://www.winchesteruu.org/news/concert-series. For more information, call 781-729-0949.