Burlap and Bean: Small Ponds with Chris Kasper

An evening with the Small Ponds.
To listen to samples, visit www.thesmallponds.com

The two met because it was fated. Or perhaps it was inevitable, since they both play music in the medium size town of Raleigh, North Carolina. But since destiny is, after all, inevitable, they spotted each other on their respective stages, were duly impressed, and they did meet. And because both of them make wonderful music, and because they’re a couple of smarties, they recognized the potential for beauty in alliance. The result is the fetching and forthright new music of The Small Ponds.

Caitlin Cary has played the violin and written songs since she was little, but fell into music as a life when she joined the seminal alt.country band Whiskeytown as it was forming in Raleigh, where she was a graduate student in writing at N.C. State. Since then, she has released four solo recordings, formed a renowned all-girl super-group called Tres Chicas, and made No Depression Magazine’s top 20 of the decade list with Begonias, an album of duets with Thad Cockrell.

Matt Douglas’s training began with woodwind instruments, and he graduated as a contemporary music performance major from NYU. From there, he headed to Hungary on a Fulbright scholarship as a student of folk music traditions. It was there that he first picked up a guitar and began to write songs, which led to the formation of innovative pop ensemble The Proclivities, who recently released their second LP. Douglas has also lent his talents to the recordings of artists such as Josh Ritter, Erin McKeown, Mark Erelli, and Laura Cortese.

Today, The Small Ponds are eagerly poised to share their songs with a wider audience. New, fast friends, Cary and Douglas are busy creating delightful new music based around their combined talents and their penchants for clear-headed, clear-spoken lyrics, precise, knowing arrangements, wide-ranging, emotionally packed songs—all brought to life by a tender vocal interplay that may inspire new entries to the dictionary definition of “duet.”

-- Opening will be special guest Chris Kasper