News

Freshwater: CMU Press Release
July 20, 2006 Freshwater

MEDIA CONTACT: Lindsay Allen, 989-774-7327
PROGRAM CONTACT: Scott Burgess, 989-774-2045

A band that describes itself as “postmoderns playing raucous dance music, pop-inspired arrangements of folksongs and lots of free-spirited step dancing” has released its first-ever compact disc.

The self-titled debut album by Freshwater, a young but traditional group of musicians, was recently released by White Pine Music, the recording label operated by Central Michigan University’s School of Music.

The group includes CMU students Nic Gareiss (feet and flatiron octave mandolin) and Bill Wiegandt (acoustic guitar) of Mount Pleasant, Denison University (Granville, Ohio) student Nellie Schrantz (fiddle, feet and bodhran) of St. Johns, and luthier Budd Greenman (fiddle, mandolin and viola) of Sparta.

Influenced by the traditional music of the U.S. Appalachians and parts of Canada and Ireland, Freshwater has been well received by fans of such music, including those in attendance at May’s Wheatland Traditional Arts Weekend in Remus, where the group performed and the album was first offered for sale.

Gareiss said Freshwater’s music reflects the eventual direction of contemporary music.

“I think the future holds a sound that is genreless,” he said. “It’s undoubtedly influenced by tradition, but not bound by it – a synthesis of Old World ideas and postmodern sensibilities.

“Many of the songs have a similar origin,” Gareiss said. “They have something that can stir you right down to the core. It’s not even like you have to learn them, only remember them from when they were sung somewhere in the back of your mind. It’s a little creepy sometimes, like your ancestors are teaching you this music across the span of a hundred years.”

CMU School of Music Audio Production Manager Scott Burgess said the group’s sound and skill were ideal for the White Pine label.

“I heard Freshwater the first time they performed, and I have heard them grow quickly as a group since then,” said Burgess, who produced the album. “Making a recording of enthusiastic young musicians who are working to get others interested in the old music is a natural project for White Pine.”

Additional information about Freshwater – including sound clips and tour dates – is available online at
Freshwater’s Website.