“Making Magic with Ken Burns” – A Schwab Piano-Lecture
Date and Time: Sunday, June 15, 2025, 4 PM. Inside concert
Grounds open at 3:30 for optional picnic on the green before the concert, weather permitting. Bring a chair or blanket if desired.
Location: Island Arts Center, 1127 US Rt 2, North Hero, VT 05474
Tickets: FREE concert for all to enjoy. Registration requested and appreciated but not required.
Pianist Jacqueline Schwab performs her solo program “Making Magic with Ken Burns.” Heard for many years on numerous Ken Burns’ documentaries, in this concert, she will feature pieces from her Burns soundtrack performances—vintage American folk tunes and standards, spirituals, traditional Celtic tunes and more. She will also share some of her own work celebrating cultural diversity, inspired by her work with Burns.
Schwab will speak about the tunes and Burns’ unusual way of working with music—how he inspires emotive performances and uses music to amplify his messages and shed historical light on today’s world. This will be Jacqueline’s first Island Arts appearance. She spins musical stories out of the many strands in the American quilt, with community music-making at their heart.
Her signature playing has been featured in over a dozen Ken Burns’ documentaries, including his Grammy-winning Civil War, Baseball, Lewis and Clark, Mark Twain, The War, and his recently-released Benjamin Franklin, as well as in other PBS documentaries, such as The Irish in America—The Long Journey Home. She has performed at the White House and on national PBS, accompanied Scottish singer Jean Redpath on A Prairie Home Companion, and appeared on the CBS Late Show with David Letterman. She is well known to the traditional dance world for her groundbreaking playing with the Bare Necessities ensemble. Her recently-released solo album––I Lift My Lamp, Illuminations from Immigrant America––celebrates vintage music from American immigrants. She is a graduate of the New England Conservatory’s Third Stream Department (now Contemporary Music) with a degree in piano improvisation. She lives in the Boston area.
