Train House Friends

About the Ensemble: What do you get when you cross a classically-trained cellist with a rural-raised banjo player and a jazz pianist who grew up playing gospel music? You get "Train House Friends", a trio of Minneapolis-based buddies with very different musical and cultural backgrounds who love spending time playing music together. Mikey Marget, McKain Lakey, & Kevin Gamble explore cross-genre collaboration- musically supporting one another on traditional songs, improvisations, and original compositions alike. 

Program Description: In their Class Notes Concert, Train House Friends will perform a combination of traditional, original, and improvised music rooted in a mixture of classical, old-time, gospel, and jazz. 
 
Students will discuss the concept of genre and use music vocabulary to identify characteristics of a variety of genres.  Train House Friends will demonstrate ways to pay tribute to various musical traditions while also pushing back on musical conventions and creating new music together. 
 
Students will also understand how musicians use ensemble skills to communicate and make music together.  

Finally, because Train House Friends write their own music together, students will experience and understand aspects of collaborative songwriting.  

Sample Music: