Bright Series: Forsyth

Forsyth is a new collective of Boston-based musicians Kate Knudsvig, Erin Shea Hogan, Kat Wallace and Helen Kuhar, bringing together remarkable vocal harmonies, adventurous instrumentation and a deep love of Celtic musical traditions.

Individually, these four musicians have traveled some impressive musical roads. Their collective résumés stretch from Carnegie Hall and Boston Symphony Hall to Celtic Thunder, and the Boston Celtic Music Festival and collaborations with members of the Silkroad Ensemble. Kat Wallace is known to Caffè Lena audiences for her fiddle playing with Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light, while the other members bring backgrounds spanning Irish traditional music, classical performance, Americana, contra dance, jazz, folk and world music.

Put them together, though, and something entirely their own emerges.

Forsyth takes traditional songs and melodies and approaches them with four sets of ears, four musical histories and four voices. Fiddle, guitar, tenor guitar and other instrumentation weave around rich vocal arrangements as the group reimagines centuries-old material alongside original songs that sound perfectly at home within the tradition.

Formed in January 2025, Forsyth has moved remarkably quickly, selling out shows, performing and teaching at festivals including the Maine Celtic Celebration and Baltimore Old-Time Festival, and building an enthusiastic following well beyond their Boston home.

In January 2026, the quartet gathered at Great North Sound Society to record their debut album, due for release in early 2027, making this an especially exciting moment to hear a young band whose musical identity is taking shape right before our ears.

At the heart of Forsyth is the thing folk music has always done best: musicians taking something handed down to them, adding their own lives and voices, and passing it along changed but still connected to where it came from.

Come meet Forsyth at Caffè Lena. We have a feeling you’ll be hearing a lot more about them.

SAMPLE SONG

The Bright Series is made possible by a generous gift from Kevin & Claudia Bright, these monthly shows feature artists playing the venue for the first time. These are fresh, contemporary roots-based bands that are making waves on the national folk scene, getting strong radio play, charting, releasing albums, developing a strong following on social media, touring hard, and selling out venues.

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Tags

American Roots