PORT TOWNSEND — Trinity United Methodist’s Candlelight Concerts will host Bobbi Nikles and Jere Canote, a Port Townsend fiddler and guitarist duo, at 7 p.m. Thursday.
The performance at the church, at 609 Taylor St., Port Townsend, will be one set with no intermission. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. Due to the high number of COVID-19 cases in the county, masks will be required at the concert, organizers said.
The performance also will be streamed live at https://trinityumcpt.org, which also has a link for the Candlelight Concerts Online and ways to donate. The concert will be simulcast on KPTZ FM 91.9.
Admission is free, with a suggested donation $10 per person. Half of the proceeds from this concert will be donated to Olympic Neighbors, https://olympic neighbors.org, whose mission is to create home and community for people with developmental disabilities.
Nikles has played the fiddle in a wide array of bands: old-time, Irish, jazz combos, and contradance bands for over 30 years.
She has contributed to Strings magazine with articles on bowing technique and instrument evaluation and she founded and directed the acclaimed day camp “Fiddlekids” in Berkeley, Calif.
She teaches at camps, workshops and in her private studio, and has been on staff at the YEA Music! program and at Centrum’s Festival of American Fiddletunes. Nikles has appeared on KPTZ’s programs “Tossed Salad” and “Cats in our Laps,” where she performs the closing theme music.
It all started for Canote when he received a guitar for Christmas while in high school in California. He began singing and performing with his twin brother Greg as the Canote Brothers. They moved to the Puget Sound area in the early 1980s and played for nearly two decades with dance caller and musician Sandy Bradley, doing festivals and a weekly live radio show on KUOW.
Along the way, he picked up the banjo, the ukulele and the harmonica. The twins then forged a career performing and teaching their own brand of Americana. They have taught all over the country and have often been featured at Centrum’s Fiddle Tune Festival.
Canote moved to Port Townsend in 2015 and found a kindred musical spirit in Nikles.
