The Red Dirt Concert Series will return for its ninth season of free spring Friday concerts at the Posse Grounds Pavilion on May 2, with a world music-themed night featuring Lyra opening for Traveler from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“[Traveler] is centered around the places where [Scott Jeffers] has traveled, the instruments that he has acquired there and the musical inspirations that he’s found there,” Parks and Recreation Special Events Coordinator Jason Vargo said. “Lyra is a duo composed of Maryanne Kremer-Ames and Allen Ames. They’ve been playing in Sedona since [1987], and they’re phenomenal musicians. [What’s] exciting to me about Lyra is their violinist Ames is not only a master of his instrument, but created his own instrument that he performs with. He calls it a [violira] and it is a six-string fiddle that has a much larger range than the standard violin or even a viola.”

Traveler

“It’s a free concert, so you can’t lose there,” Jeffers said. “You need to make sure you make sure you live as much as you work hard. And [music] is part living. You need to go out and hear some live music … You’re not going to hear another band that sounds like us. This is going to be the Traveler experience.”

The band features Scott Jeffers on vocals and violin, Zack Egan on guitars and banjitar, Adam Rebeske on cello and upright bass and Jason Wiedman on drums.

“The compositions range from fiery, playful songs to tragic heart-wrenching ballads, inspired while traveling on the treks across the harsh deserts of Jordan and Egypt and across the contrasting landscape of the Emerald Isle, on the sand dunes of Morocco, at the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in birdsong-filled forests of Transylvania, in the rain forests of Malaysia and touring the ancient amphitheaters in Turkey,” the city of Sedona website states about the band’s work.

Traveler will be playing an all-original set at Red Dirt, starting with an acoustic performance and ending with an electric set, which Jeffers said is something they don’t typically do due to the number of instruments involved.

“It’s just so spectacular to play outdoor concerts in a setting like Posse Grounds Pavilion. Our music fits so well with nature, and we want to go all out for this crowd,” Jeffers said. “We always look forward to venues like this. I’m super psyched about it. A lot of this music comes from villages and places far from cities, so it naturally feels connected to nature. I get most of my inspiration as a writer when I’m out in nature — that’s when I do most of my composing, so the music reflects where it comes from.”

Lyra

Kremer-Ames said that Lyra is distinguished by their conversational performance style in which they constantly trade leads and solos to create a musical dialogue that keeps audiences engaged.

“The violira goes down into the cello range and the viola range, and then I play classical guitar, and that frees me up to play melody, because you can do the accompaniment parts and then we can switch off, kind of like a string quartet,” Kremer-Ames said. “When we first got together, we went right into the classical violin and guitar repertoire, which proved to be kind of limited. It was fun for a brief time, but it was so limited we just wanted to branch out and do other things. And because the violin doesn’t go down very low. There was no way for me to properly accompany the guitar, yeah. So I came up with the violira [in 1995].” 

The duo play works from genres including classical, world music, pop and jazz.

“Lately, we’ve been doing a lot more gypsy swing,“ Kremer-Ames said.

“All of the parking is usually available for the Red Dirt Concerts,” Vargo said. “They also somehow manage to still float relatively under the radar. So as amazing as these shows are, we’re still only seeing 400 to 500 people at the most for these concerts, which makes for a comfortable concert experience. It is kind of the ideal size for an event over at the Posse Grounds Pavilion. So I would encourage people to get out now, before this whole thing blows up in popularity.”

The Red Dirt Concert Series will return in September, and the full lineup is available on the Parks and Recreation website at sedonaaz.gov.