For songwriter Zoe Mulford, the ordinary is miraculous and the extraordinary happens every day. A city planner recreates a vanished neighborhood. A roadside statue watches over drivers on Interstate 95. Even the family glassware has a story to tell. Born and raised in the United States, Zoe has covered a lot of ground. She has lived in Belgium and Japan, studied Chinese poetry and East African drumming, and has most recently fetched up in England in the great music city of Manchester.
Landmarks on her musical journey include English and Scottish folk ballads, the songs of Kurt Weill and George Gershwin, an apprenticeship in the Old Time picking circles of North Carolina, and a long-running flirtation with the Blues. Backing her clear vocals with guitar or banjo, she may bring to mind Joni Mitchell, Christine Lavin, and Gillian Welch in the course of a single set.

• www.zoemulford.com

Russ Arlotta, a long time resident of Takoma Park, who has been under the songwriter’s unpredictable spell since the early 1970's (writing his first song at 15), shares the evening with Zoe. Tonight, Arlotta (acoustic guitar and vocals) and Friends (Karen Taylor ­ vocal harmonies and melodica, Mindy McWilliams ­ violin, Zan Mcleod ­ electric and acoustic guitars, and mandolin, Charles Trapp - bass, Dan Robinson ­ bouzouki, Jay Endelman - acoustic guitar, and Paul Lojewski - harmonica) perform songs from his debut CD, The Road We Travel.
The common threads that bind this collection of songs are the lyrics that touch some of the deeper truths we count on for meaning in this world; love, kindness, honesty, joy, compassion, courage: the life blood of spirit and soul on this road we travel.

• www.russarlotta.com