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About the Artists
Previous audiences have found the duo to be:

"engaging, scholarly, delightful, warm, intelligent, flexible, humorous, talented, versatile, enthusiastic, personable, joyful. . . ."
"Simply put, Jim and Maggi Dalton are a national treasure."*
  
Welcome!

INTERESTED IN PARTICULAR KINDS OF PROGRAMMING?

click on the picture below for: HISTORICAL PROGRAMS

click on the picture below for: SEASONAL AND GENERAL CONCERTS

photo credits: Lang Photography, Hartford, Ct.(both). Thanks to Harriet Beecher Stowe House/Stowe-Day Foundation


 
Jim & Maggi Dalton
Singing String Music
Performance/Production/Publishing/Studio

Concerts, Workshops & Residencies
Understanding History Thru Music ™

Specialists in 19th- & Early 20th-Century Music
From Parlor and Stage
American & Celtic Traditions
Period Instruments *** Historically-Informed Performance

Jim and Maggi Dalton perform music of popular/vernacular, folk and cultivated traditions -- covering time periods from the Middle Ages to the present,
focusing largely on American and Celtic repertoire.
They specialize in music of the 19th and 20th centuries. Instrumentation: mostly plucked strings and voices.
Concerts and programs contain commentary designed to place the music performed in historical context for the audience.
Programs reflect the continual and ongoing research in which the two delight. They also perform original songs and compositions.
Jim and Maggi have released two recordings to date, and have designed a full spectrum of programs which they present nationwide.
They have been featured often on radio and television.

(PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS affiliates, Cable Networks; NPR stations,NewsRadio, interview programs across the USA

feature stories in newspapers and magazines, i.e., The Philadelphia Inquirer & Courier-Post)
They have performed at nationally-known venues (i.e., Colonial Williamsburg, Seneca Falls, the Harriet Beecher Stowe House) and countless local and regional venues nationwide.
They have served as artists-in-residence at various colleges, public history sites, community and educational centers,
presenting series addressing American history and other topics in the humanities, using music as the core of each session.

They are co-authors of the recently published book, first in a series: The Measure of the Year - Singing Through the Seasons.

Jim and Maggi are founders and co-directors of Institute for Music, History, & Cultural Traditions (IMHCT) The Institute for Music, History, and Cultural Traditions, Inc., a non-profit organization.
See below for individual short bios... See below for individual short bios...

Please visit our individual sites and our Blog, "Musical Musings"






Other Links of Interest

Sponsors and Audiences say:

Salem History Society, Salem, Massachusetts

Jim Dalton and Maggi Smith-Dalton
are members of the six-member founding group for the Society,
and currently are members of the Salem History Advisory Board.

Cultural Resources/
Other Sites of Interest

Back issues
of The Singing String News
About the Artists--Downloadable PDF form

Programs--Downloadable PDF form

************************************ About the Artists--Downloadable PDF form

Programs--Downloadable PDF form

Jim Dalton

Multi-instrumentalist Jim Dalton is an educator, conductor and award-winning composer and arranger.Ý

As a performer, he specializes in historical and ethnic playing styles on a variety of plucked string instruments including guitar, mandolin, banjo, mandocello, Renaissance lute, bouzouki etc. He also plays piano, organ, recorder and tin whistle.Ý

In addition to duo performances with his wife, soprano and guitarist Maggi Smith-Dalton, he maintains an active career as a freelance musician -- playing in chamber music ensembles, jazz and world music groups and in opera/theater and symphony orchestras. He is a member of the New England Mandolin Ensemble.

His compositions have been performed across the U.S. and Canada and in Europe. His choral composition, "The Rocky Road to Dublin," won first prize in the 1997 Toronto Camerata Competition. Two of his pieces for carillon have been published in anthologies by Fenwick Parva and the Friends of the Albany Carillon. His composition for solo mandolin, "Gifts of the Bard," is published by Wolfhead Music.

His works are available through these publishers and Singing String Music Publications.Ý

Jim is on the faculty of The Boston Conservatory, teaching music theory, ear training and world music courses for both the Music Theory and Music Education Departments.

He has written articles for Blues Revue Magazine and is the author of Mandolin for Beginners, published by Workshop Arts, Inc./Alfred Publishing. He is a frequent guest lecturer on topics such as composition, choral arranging and Irish traditional music.

In the 2004-2005 year Jim received a MACRO research grant (Univ. of Wisconsin) to study and analyze palindromic compositions in concert music repertoire and presented this work at the 2005 Macro Musician's Workshop in Madison, WI. He co-authored, with his wife, the recently-published book, The Measure of the Year - Singing Through the Seasons.

Maggi Smith-Dalton

Singer and musician, independent scholar, author and educator, Maggi Smith-Dalton has sung as a soloist with choirs and choruses both here and abroad, acted and sung in professional theater productions and produced/participated/performed in radio and television projects and programs.

She is a frequent guest lecturer -- on the integration of humanities and the arts, on folklore, and on American music and history, to name a few topics. She has given lecture/demonstration programs at the college level (i.e., The New England Conservatory, The Boston Conservatory) and in numerous professional-development courses for educators and teachers all grade levels.

Maggi is co-Founder and President, Institute for Music, History, and Cultural Traditions, Inc.; Co-Owner, Singing String Music; Current President, Salem History Society, Inc.; and co-founder and director of the upcoming American History and Music Festival.

Maggi enjoys an active performing career, which, after eleven years of work in cabaret, musical theater, and nightclub singing, has included more than two decades of concert performance nationwide and abroad, in partnership with her husband and as a soloist with choirs and in concert.

In addition, she authored a prize-winning short story and writes often for newspapers and magazines (including history and cultural/arts/educational feature articles, and a regular history column for the Salem Gazette Salem, MA).

Maggi's work in mainstream media included producing a cable TV series and programming and hosting musical theater, arts interview, and classical music shows for NPR public radio, commercial, and community stations.

A former Chairperson of the Haverhill Cultural Council, Maggi served as Musical Theater Director at Hill House (a community Arts Center) in Boston's Beacon Hill; as Director of "Adventures in Art,"a summer arts program; and as a director of children's choirs, among other activities. She often works with children on producing original musical theater works.

With a background in teaching multiply-handicapped children, Maggi continues interest in and study of music therapy. She co-authored, with her husband, the recently-published book, The Measure of the Year - Singing Through the Seasons. ; is working on a children's book; and is always working on a variety of writing projects.

Jim and Maggi maintain a private music teaching studio in Salem, Massachusetts (Singing String Music).

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About the Artists--Downloadable PDF form

Programs--Downloadable PDF form

Copyright 1997-2007 Jim Dalton & Maggi Smith-Dalton. All rights reserved.


*(quoted from Calvin Coolidge Historical Site/Plymouth Folk & Blues Concerts)