Mazel Tov Cocktail Party: Take an ounce of hip hop, dash of polka, then square dance

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/02/ [login to see] /mazel-tov-cocktail-party-take-an-ounce-of-hip-hop-dash-of-polka-then-square-danc
Clarinetist David Krakauer and pianist Kathleen Tagg were thrilled when they were invited to a chamber music retreat in rural upstate New York during the early months of the pandemic. It was an opportunity to flee their cramped Manhattan apartment and live for two weeks on a farm in the Adirondack Mountains near the Canadian border.

The couple arrived in early June 2020 but ended up staying three months, prompting their host Angela Brown to jokingly refer to them as "the squatters." Brown is the director of Hill and Hollow Music and, it turns out, an avid folk dancer. Little did she know that by introducing Krakauer and Tagg to the local folk dance scene, she had a major influence on their new musical project, pointing it in an unexpected direction.

"One of the things that I was missing and that I complained about was that the dances had all been canceled," Brown recalled. "I think they were kind of fascinated that a thriving dance culture exists here in the Adirondacks."