On Saturday, March, 2 Windsor native Ksenia Mack is coming to the Northwest Park, to offer an evening of music with her group, The Porch Party Mamas. It’s a home coming for Mack who told the Windsor Journal that she hopes to see friends a family she has not seen for years.Mack, who was brought up in Windsor and graduated from WHS lives now in Boston where for the past she has been doing what she always wanted to do, she said with a smile: play music.
“Music in my family,” she recalled. “Most of my family played music, very unprofessionally. They’d get together, my dad and my aunt would get together in the basement and play music with some of their friends. We used to do this every Tuesday night. And then all of my relatives would come in the basement and listen. And sometimes my mom would get real funny and play the washboard and stuff. It was just real fun.”
Mack started playing guitar in high school, and when it was time for college her mom suggested that she study music, because it was really the only thing she was interested in “That was really great and nice of her, Mack now said. “So I learned how to play classical guitar from a woman named Ellen Jameson, that was also a Windsor Native, and I got into school at Uconn with studying classical guitar. And then, when I finished school with that degree, I moved to Boston and I did what I always really wanted to do, which was singer-songwriting style.”
Gradually she became known in the area, and progressed to playing in shows, and then do opening acts for famed musicians like Willie Nelson, Patty Griffin and the Indigo Girls. But she found her real place among the other members of the Porch Party Mamas, a group of talented female musicians who write and perform Americana.
“These four women that I play with, I consider them some of the best musicians that I’ve met in my entire life,” she told us. “We all play together, and we’re all each others’ band members. There’s four writers, and we are all each others’ band. Our style is a little bit diverse and eclectic, but basically Americana covers it.”
The band is Kelly Riley on guitar and bass, Felicia Brady accordion. Windsor’s own Ksenia Mack guitar. Percussionist Katrin Peterson and fiddler Jane Grondin.
Why “Porch Party Mamas?” we asked.
“Because we started to play just like my parents did,” Mack responded. “My husband and I would throw these music parties, and these were the people that would come.”
The group is now collecting material and getting ready to professionally record.
So, if you want to listen to some great music, that has at some roots right from the Hometown, on March 2 the Northwest Park will be the place.
For ticket information go to www.northwestpark.org or call the park at 860-285-1886. Proceeds from the concert will benefit environmental studies at the Park.
To view article go to Windsor Journal
