7/28 Summervale: Pete's Posse & Young Traditions

By Brenna Lewis-Slammon, Summervale Music Intern

This week at Summervale, the infamous Vermont-based band, Pete’s Posse will be performing accompanied by the Young Traditions Showcase. Created in dedication to Tom Sustic, a 16-year-old boy deeply rooted in the Vermont music community who lost his life to leukemia, Young Traditions Vermont is an organization aimed at promoting traditional music and dance in young populations and supporting the families of children suffering from life-altering diseases. This will be the culminating performance for one of their Summer programs, featuring a number of creative acts.

The artists of Pete’s Posse will be organizing and supporting the performances done by the Young Traditions’ students. Pete’s Posse is a group composed of three talented folk-based musicians: Pete Sutherland, Tristan Henderson, and Oliver Scanlon. Known perhaps best for their dual fiddle work, the triad combine their various specialties to create a sound as old as Vermont and as fresh as up-churned mud in Spring. Through their music, they at once rejoice in rich folk traditions and additionally drive the genre forward. In seeing them perform, it becomes entirely clear how deep the music runs in each of them: slight smiles pull at the corners of their mouths, bodies sway, and feet tap out a celebratory percussion.The heart and soul of both Pete’s Posse and the Young Traditions group floats along the surface of each crest and valley within their sound. In this way, they speak of the universals in life and create an intoxicating energy along the way -- a passion for those very universal experiences. So, come -- dance. Allow your body to sway and your feet to tap. Be inspired by young performers and left in awe by the well-practiced, guiding hand of Pete’s Posse.