Maggie Shar, Winston Salem NC native, brought their banjo in-studio to play a few tunes on NineVoltHeart. Maggie will be part of the Winter Solstice concert along with the Low Lily on December 12 at the Parlor Room in Northampton, Massachusetts. We chatted about her early influences in NC finding her way to the banjo. We discussed why she enjoyed playing in this style as well as her teaching style and philosophy. Maggie teaches private lessons in person or online at MaggieShar.com

She started off with a tune called “Half Irish” and followed that with some of her important influences and teachers. Maggie Shar is in a number of creative projects such as The Ephemeral Stringband, The Moon Shells, and Little Roots; a music education program for young players. Little Roots has appeared locally many times at Luthiers, The Parlor Room, The Academy of Music, the Iron Horse. The Little Roots program has been featured many years at both Arcadia Folf Festival and the Green River Festival.

We talked about the upcoming Parlor Room show that Maggie will be playing, along with fellow-“MoonShell”-er, Brian Slattery on fiddle. We played a version of “Sally Ann in C” that Brian and her recorded as well as a song from the Moon Shells called “Fireworks”. Maggie played a spirited tune called “Goldrush” solo banjo style and we finished the segment with a Moon Shell tune appropriate for the Solstice show called “Let Out the Light”.

The remainder of the hour featured songs from We Banjo 3, Mark Erelli, Mark O’Connor and Tony Trischka; all in the wintery spirit.

Tickets for the Winter Solstice show on December 12 can be found at ParlorRoom.org