If you enjoy acoustic music and you’re looking for a unique listening experience, this Thursday’s AHA! Night offers a pair of unique performances at two downtown New Bedfordestablishments.
At 6 p.m., the father-and-son duo of guitarist Donn Legge and cellist Ian Legge will bring their smooth stringed ambiance to Gallery X at 33 William St. And at 6:30 p.m., Hooly J Chan and Sarah Donner will be at the Hewn boutique at 760 Purchase St. to perform selections from their personal catalogs as well as a half dozen songs from their new musical, “The Beauty Below.”
The Legges will be performing an eclectic mix of popular songs from the Beatles to Green Day, in addition to requests from audience members, making for a fun, classy vibe. Father Donn Legge will be playing the chords on his guitar while son Ian will be providing the vocal melodies on his cello.
For nearly a decade, the Legges have performed regionally as a duo. Both of the local residents boast music degrees in their respective instruments.
“We really vibe off of each other, we can read each other’s minds,” Ian says. “There’s a special chemistry that I wouldn’t trade for the world.”
But as if this duo wasn’t unique enough, Ian has another musical identity – “The Punk Cellist.”
In addition to being a classically-trained cellist, Ian is also a punk rock drummer, having been the back bone of the local band, Half Hearted Hero. In recent years Ian has been able to meld his two musical passions to establish a reputation as an enigmatic performer – cello versions of punk rock songs – a gig that has taken him from orchestras to punk rock stages around North America.
“The Punk Cellist” originally started playing punk songs on his cello to entertain his family and friends, but the project got started in earnest when he posted versions of the songs online. The songs won the interest of some of the bands that wrote them, including the local punk band, A Wilhelm Scream, and the former Tour Manager of the iconic punk band, The Ramones. Eventually Ian was invited to take to the stage with the band H2O in Providence, followed by a show at “The Fest” punk rock festival in Gainesville, FL, followed by four shows in Canada and Colorado with Garrett Dale, the singer for the band Red City Radio.
“Being onstage at punk shows is so much fun,” Ian says. “It’s a lot of fun to be jumping around like a crazy person.”
But Thursday’s performance will not be crazy, it will be aesthetically rich.
The Legges first performed together for a friend’s wedding reception at Bittersweet Farms in Westport in 2014. Donn Leggeplays guitar with a plethora of regional outfits in a variety of genres, including Blues Train, NB Rude Boys, South Coast Jazz Orchestra, Matt Richard, October Road, and the Kareem Sanjaghi Trio.
“Ian and I have had a good camaraderie from the start,” Donn says. “We have a familiarity with each other.”
The Hewn performance featuring Chan and Donner will include songs from a musical that is based on the plight of the American right whales. Inspired by a documentary shown at the New Bedford Whaling Museum last November, the songs will also be performed at noon on Saturday, April 22nd at the Buttonwood Park Zoo for the “Party for the Planet” event. The zoo performance will be accompanied by more than a dozen puppets that were created by the local collective, Wicked Queer Puppet Theatre. Thursday’s Hewn performance will be strictly music and will not include puppets.
The music of Hooly J Chan and Sarah Donner can be found on all major streaming services.
Sonic SouthCoast 