Randy Marchany
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Randy Marchany is a hammered dulcimer player, who, along with Wes Chappell and Suzy Gorsline, is one of the original hammer dulcimer players for the band No Strings Attached, with which he has been since 1980. He plays the hammered dulcimer and keyboards, and was trained as a classical pianist. He took up the instrument in 1978.
An award-winning quartet, No Strings Attached's music has been described as "eclectic, jazz on acoustic instruments and world beat." The eclectic brand of music they play has allowed them to open for such artists as Mary Wilson and the Supremes, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Nickel Creek, Doc Watson, Stephen Bennett, Tommy Emmanuel, the Dixie Chicks, Turtle Island String Quartet, John Hartford, Hot Club of Cowtown, Hot Rize, Alison Krause and Union Station, and John McCutcheon. They have played in European venues such as Cardiff Harbour Festival, (Wales), the Pontardarwe Festival (Wales), the Cork Music Festival (Ireland), Folk Club Zuriche (Switzerland) and in U.S. venues ranging from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and CBS TV's Morning News program.
Marchany started teaching workshops on hammer technique at the California Traditional Music Society's Summer Solstice festival in 1984. Since then, he and Chappell have taught at various workshops and camps such as the Augusta Heritage Arts Workshops in Elkins, West Virginia, the Swannanoa Gathering in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. He experiments with different styles of music on the hammered dulcimer and loves to play swing and jazz tunes on the instrument. He wrote the theme song for the PRI radio program, World Cafe and that song, Reggae Jackson was used in the show for a number of years.
Marchany is a native of Virginia and went to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.
[edit] Discography
- Old Friend's Waltz, No Strings Attached, 2003
- Bellinzona, No Strings Attached, 1997
- Blue Roses, No Strings Attached, 1995 (Nominated for INDIE award, Best Album - String Music Category)
- Coffee at Midnight, No Strings Attached, 1992 (Nominated for INDIE award, Best Album - String Music Category)
- Take 5, No Strings Attached, 1988 (Award Winner: INDIE award, Best Album - String Music Category)
- Dulcimer Dimensions, No Strings Attached, 1987 (Nominated for INDIE award, Best Album - String Music Category)
- Traditional Music of the Future, No Strings Attached, 1986 (Nominated for INDIE award, Best Album - String Music Category)
- Isles of Langerhans, No Strings Attached, 1984
- Just Another Hammer Dulcimer Band, No Strings Attached 1983
