Cold Chocolate, a fresh and exciting roots Americana trio from Boston will appear at The Mainstay in Rock Hall, MD on Thursday, August 10, 2017, at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $13 if purchased in advance and $15 at the door. Information and advance ticket sales are available at the Mainstay’s web site. Reservations to pay at the door can be made by calling 410-639-9133.
Cold Chocolate’s sound stretches the boundaries of bluegrass and folk with a dash of funk. Featuring Ethan Robbins on guitar, Kirsten Lamb on upright bass and Ariel Bernstein on percussion, they combine original tunes and technical mastery to mesmerize audiences with their instrumentals, three-part harmony and their raw rootsy approach to a high-energy performance.
Since their formation in 2011, the band has shared bills with such bluegrass giants as Leftover Salmon and David Grisman and has performed at numerous prominent East Coast festivals, including the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, FloydFest, FreshGrass Festival, and the Ossipee Valley Music Festival.
Guitarist/songwriter Ethan Robbins was a classical violinist starting at the age of four. He fell in love with the guitar at age fourteen and began his bluegrass career at Oberlin College. A founding member of The Outhouse Troubadours, an Oberlin Bluegrass phenomenon, he began to explore how this hard-driving fast-paced genre could be stretched.
Robbins met Cold Chocolate upright bassist Kirsten Lamb while at Oberlin. Born into a musical family, she became a multi-instrumentalist at an early age. At thirteen, she shifted her focus to the upright bass, as its versatility appealed to her growing musical curiosity. She graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory and, in 2015, earned a masters degree in the Contemporary Improvisation Department at the New England Conservatory. She was called part of “one of the finest rhythm sections ever to be fetched up in the name of bluegrass” by Mickey Clark of AmericanaUK magazine.
In 2011, the loose-wristed Ariel Bernstein joined Cold Chocolate on percussion, completing the ensemble. As a student of Jim Tiller, the Principal Percussionist and Assistant Principal Timpanist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Percussion for Performance at the State University of New York, Geneseo. His light touch adds a tasteful groove to Cold Chocolate’s tunes, filling out their sound. In addition to playing in Cold Chocolate, Bernstein can often be found at Dimension Sound Studios in Jamaica Plain, engineering the records of many of Boston’s finest acoustic musicians, including Josh Ritter, The Ballroom Thieves, and Mr. Sun.
The Mainstay (Home of Musical Magic) is the friendly informal storefront performing arts center on Rock Hall’s old time Main Street. It is a 501(c)(3), nonprofit dedicated to the arts, serving Rock Hall, MD, and the surrounding region. It is committed to presenting local, regional and national level talent, at a reasonable price, in an almost perfect acoustic setting. Wine, beer, sodas, and snacks are available at the bar.
The Mainstay is supported by ticket sales, fundraising including donations from friends and audience members and an operating grant from the Maryland State Arts Council.
The Mainstay sells advance tickets online through Instant Seats. Information and advance ticket sales are available on the Mainstay’s website. Follow the Buy Tickets link to buy tickets at the advance price. If you would rather pay at the door, you can make a reservation by calling 410-639-9133 and pay by cash or check at the door.
Upcoming Mainstay performances include:
August 14 Mainstay Monday: Joe Holt welcomes Sue Matthews
August 19 Jan Knutson
August 21 Mainstay Monday: Joe Holt welcomes Danny Tobias
August 26 Nevin Dawson: The Versatile Viola
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