Folk Concert Coming To SCCC/ATS
KSCB News - October 14, 2014 9:51 pm
A folk-rock band playing in a smoky room. Alternative music nobody’s heard on mainstream radio — yet.
Access to that kind of cutting-edge music is rare in Southwest Kansas, but the Fine Arts Department at Seward County Community College is bringing it on stage this week with the performance group “ilyAIMY.” The letters stand for the phrase “I love you and I miss you.”
The group will present a free concert at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Showcase Theater on campus. Donations at the door will fund music scholarships at SCCC/ATS.
“We don’t get a lot of really good professional musicians traveling through the area,” said music instructor Darrin Workman. “This is a great opportunity to hear some really good music.”
While ilyAIMY may be unfamiliar to music-lovers in the Midwest, the group is on the rise.
“They just recorded an album in Los Angeles, and they’re on their way back East,” said Workman. Scheduling a show at SCCC/ATS was a matter of geographic pragmatism, as ilyAIMY had already scheduled performances at major universities on the way back to the group’s hometown of Baltimore. Liberal, Workman said, turned out to be a good place to stop on the journey.
With a percussive mixutre of rock, folk, soul, bluegrass, jazz and hip-hop, ilyAIMY makes use of guitar, ukulele, djembe, cello, piano, vocals and an eclectic mix of unusual instruments like the Irish bones and steel pan.
ilyAIMU has earned high praise from critics in the alternative-music scene. Jake Stephens of On Tap Magazine described the sound as “a bone-rattling acoustic act with driving lyrical force and male-female harmonies that lock in, life, drop and pull … and then they slow it down and rip you open.”
Reviewer Pat Wictor wrote that “ilyAIMY ain’t your grandpa’s folk music — and thank goodness. They are fearless writers and performers. Voices this rich and emotionally hard-hitting — equal parts velvet darkness, barely contained heartbreak and hard-won, unstoppable joy — don’t come around often.”
Workman and SCCC/ATS vocal instructor Dr. Magda Silva hope students will take advantage of a master class planned for Thrusday afternoon.
“It’s a great chance for the kids to hear professional singer-songwriters, and to learn from them,” Workman said. “We’re really excited to have them come.”
The ilyAIMY concert is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Showcase Theater on the SCCC/ATS campus, 1801 N. Kansas Ave., Liberal. For information about the master class, contact Workman at 
620-417-1458 or Silva at 620-417-1462 . Admission to the concert is free, but the department will be collecting donations for music scholarships.
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