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WHITE HORSE LIVE #37: Akira Satake & Duncan Wickel
November 7, 2020 @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm EST

White Horse is open to the public, but continues to have very limited seating due to ongoing COVID safety recommendations. You’re invited to buy a ticket to attend in person, or join us online. If you watch online, come back to this page at event time, and the video will start automatically. There is no fixed ticket price for the live stream of this program; instead, we ask that you pay what you can via the Tip Jar.
Akira Satake first discovered the banjo through his older brother’s Flatt and Scruggs recordings while growing up in Osaka, Japan. After relocating to New York City in his early 20’s he spent two decades honing his innovative banjo style in venues from Village clubs to Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. He went on to master the shamisen (Japanese banjo) in his own original style, and has made it an important part of his repertory.
Satake garnered international attention with his collection of original compositions, “Cooler Heads Prevail,” and shared the 1998 German Music Critics’ Award for Best World Music Recording with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He has performed and/or recorded with such artists as Shawn Colvin, Nancy Griffith, Jim Lauderdale, Hazel Dickens and Tony Trischka, and produced award-winning CDs for Tim O’Brien, Mamadou Diabate, Johnny Cunningham and flamenco guitarist Gerardo Nunez.
American banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka calls Satake,
a brilliant banjoist with a split-level passion for the fiery breakdowns of southern Appalachia and the kaleidoscopic rhythms and melodies of World Music.”
Bowed-String Instrumentalist, world class musican, singer, writer, and inventor of the Wickelbuckle, Duncan Wickel is in the words of The Boston Globe:
A considerable talent…as persuasive in a traditional ballad as he is country fiddling or ripping through cascading classical flourishes or atonal double stops”.
In 2016, Duncan performed on two consecutive episodes of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He has toured and recorded with major folk artists including Rising Appalachia, Molly Tuttle, The Duhks, John Doyle, Karan Casey, Ruth Moody, Rushad Eggleston, and many others.
Duncan’s music has echoed off the walls of Carnegie Hall, The Lincoln and Kennedy Center(s), the Grand Ole Opry and the famed Biblioteca Alexandria in Egypt. He has performed and taught in over 22 countries spanning every continent on Earth that is normally inhabited by humans (sorry, Antarctica).
Duncan is currently recording his debut solo record, scheduled for release in Winter 2018-2019. He currently tours with Rising Appalachia, Molly Tuttle, The Stash! Band, and as himself.