| Mark Dvorak (Photo provided) |
Folk troubadour Mark Dvorak expects to enjoy himself when he plays in Pemberville and Grand Rapids this
weekend.
The Chicago-based performer will open the new, expanded season of Live in the House with concerts
Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the Pemberville Opera House and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Grand Rapids Opera
House. The performance will be the first concert in the series to take place in Grand Rapids.
There’s something in the air about historic spaces, Dvorak said. "More often than not I’ll sense
some richness in an old building."
He can sense that this is a place where people have been coming for a long time to hear performances, and
he appreciates being part of that legacy
"It makes you reach differently for what’s inside of you," Dvorak said.
He likened it to jamming with really good musicians, his spirits are "lifted" by the
experience.
He also knows that these spaces are a testament to the value people put on art, both when they were
originally built and more recently when they were refurbished. "These people say, ‘we want art in
this town,’" Dvorak said. "I get to be part off that … It is special."
Dvorak, 50, who has been touring and performing for 20 years, will present his show "Just Something
My Grandma Used to Sing."
Dvorak grew up in a Czech neighborhood in Cicero, just outside of Chicago. He lived in the same house as
one grandfather and his other grandparents lived across the street.
He remembers his grandmother singing around the house and on car trips. "She was Irish," he
said. "She wasn’t afraid of opening her mouth."
She grew up at a time before radio when people made their own music.
Only much later did Dvorak discover that in her younger days she sang in a glee club.
She sang the classics of the early 20th century – "Shine on Harvest Moon" and "It’s a Sin
to Tell a Lie."
Learning this proved to be a revelation for the folksinger. "You can learn cowboy songs and Delta
blues, but you really are musically where you came from."
He’ll also be bringing his banjo. "They’ll hear my full American song bag."
Dvorak mixes stories in with the songs. "It’ll be very folksy."
He may even slip in one of his own songs and see if people realize it’s new.
When he first started as a folksinger, he expected to follow his model Bob Dylan and pen his own songs.
But he realized he didn’t know enough about music. Others around him didn’t know any more, but wrote
songs anyway. "They weren’t any good," he said.
Dvorak started learning banjo and gravitated toward more traditional material.
About eight years ago he was fooling around when an idea for a song "just popped up."
Dvorak said he now collects thoughts as they occur to him, and then he sits down and does the hard work
of crafting them into a finished song.
Tickets for the Pemberville and Grand Rapids shows are $12 at Beeker’s General Store.Online:
www.pembervilleoperahouse.org
www.grandrapidsartscouncil.org
