The Granary Girls:
Patty Kakac and Jodi Ritter
The Granary Girls to Bring Issue Oriented Folk Music to UMC February 9
The Granary Girls, a rural folk duo, will perform at the University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) Saturday, February 9, 2002. The performance begins at 8 p.m. in Bede Ballroom, and it is open to the public. Admission is free for UMC students; a small admission fee will be charged to others.
Patty Kakac and Jodi Ritter describe themselves as two rural feminists who play issue-oriented folk music. As the Granary Girls, they have performed at numerous festivals, coffee houses, and concerts including the Fergus Falls Festival of the Arts, the Black & White, the East Ottertail Co. Museum Pioneer Festival, the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center, the Northfield Arts Guild, and The Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. Both have also been recipients of regional arts grants.
The Granary Girls debuted at a coffee house in west central rural Minnesota in February of 1999. The two met in 1997, while Kakac was working on the play "Lives Entwined, A Patchwork Quilt," for a community awareness project to bring the AIDS quilt to the area. Ritter was looking to put her talents to use in the musical part of the play. On her farm Kakac had a granary, which doubles as a summer kitchen, and offered it as a place for Ritter to live. The two soon discovered they had similar interests and musical tastes. The idea of offering a rural women's perspective of folk music was also a strong connection, and so the Granary Girls were formed.
Kakac has been writing and performing her own music since 1978. She has written music for a PBS documentary and for numerous educational plays that speak to social issues such as the farm crisis, AIDS, gender equity, and violence prevention. She plays a variety of musical instruments: guitar, autoharp, harmonica, penny whistle, upright bass. Her vocals have been likened to Dolores Keane, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Kate Wolf. Prior to being a part of the Granary Girls, she was a founding member of the folk and bluegrass band Patty and the Pinetones.
Ritter has been singing all her life and often speaks of how her mother propped her up against the piano before she could walk for voice lessons. A native of North Dakota, she says her music is influenced by wide open spaces and also social justice issues. Her musical influences have been artists such as Mary Black and Connie Kaldor, Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women, Bonnie Raite, and Patty Larkin. She writes music, sings, and plays the guitar, upright bass, and penny whistle. Ritter also works as an in-home counselor for domestic violence survivors and children.
Learn more at the group's website: www.granarygirls.com.
This event is sponsored by UMC Concerts and Lectures Committee. Disability accommodations are available upon request by calling 218-8506.
Posted 02/06/2002
Contact: Andrew Svec,
218-281-8435