Singer-songwriter Mary Lee Partington and guitarist Ed Sweeney joined forces in 2017 as a music-making duo, Partington & Sweeney. They are captivated by song and instrumental traditions rooted in rocky New England, which yield a harvest of American folk and popular music from across the centuries and across a continent. Combining an award-winning voice and the homegrown stylings of Martin guitars and custom longneck or fretless banjos superlatively played, Partington & Sweeney have set out to perform, record, entertain, and make music that travels with the tradition or that revels in the original. Partington & Sweeney’s repertoire cultivates collaborations and charts a course for a new journey. Mary Lee and Ed currently are recording their debut CD “Commonplace” with engineer David Correia of Celebration Sound. Sweeney performs a wide-ranging repertoire of traditional music on 6- and 12-string guitar, 5-string banjo, and fretless banjo, two uniquely traditional American instruments. Ed also teaches guitar and banjo at Blackstone River Theatre.

Kim Trusty hails from Media, Pennsylvania. Her foray into songwriting started at a young age and eventually brought her to New England to study songwriting at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass., where she was referred to as “the girl with the golden voice.” She has spent the last three decades residing in Providence, refining her musical skills, crafting and branding her own style of Jazz, R&B, Blues and original music. She has performed as an actress playing the role of Rosue in When Mahalia Sings from 2010-2012. She is currently is working with a screenwriter to tell her amazing story as a black lesbian artist, educator, stroke and cancer survivor. Through it all, Kim has carried on, rising from each fall a little stronger to bring us music that inspires and heals. She will be performing tonight with gifted fiddler/cellist Cathy Clasper-Torch.