Allow me to take a crack at my own question: When do we get to call something a tradition?
I think it’s when something endures through time and even generations, becomes familiar, takes on cultural significance and comforts with constancy.
Most of us know a tradition when we see one.
It was way back, probably in its 5th or 6th year, that Helicon’s annual Winter Solstice Concert became a tradition. But that’s just a guess, based on my memory of when Helicon became a thing in Baltimore. Tradition status might have been obtained before that. The talented lads who perform American folk and world music might have come out of their first Winter Solstice Concert at Church of the Redeemer in North Baltimore hearing people from the sold-out audience say they had established an instant tradition.
Exactly when Ken Kolodner (hammered dulcimer and fiddle), Chris Norman (flute and pennywhistle) and Robin Bullock (guitar, cittern and mandolin) crossed the line from staging an “annual concert” to keeping a “holiday tradition” does not matter much anymore.
Fact is, Helicon’s Winter Solstice concert, now in its 40th year, is as much a Baltimore tradition as the Miracle on 34th Street, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s tap-dancing Santas, the School for the Arts’ performances of “The Nutcracker,” and the train garden at the Wise Avenue Volunteer Fire Company in Dundalk.
The concert moved from Redeemer to Kraushaar Auditorium at Goucher College, then to the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall for some years and back to Kraushaar. That’s where Helicon and friends will assemble Dec. 20 for their 40th annual concerts, with two shows, one at 3:30 pm, the second at 7:30 pm. The concerts at Goucher follow two other performances, one in Washington, D.C., one in Hockessin, Delaware.
Kolodner, Norman and Bullock all have busy careers as performing solo artists and teachers. Kolodner lives in Baltimore, Norman in Nova Scotia and Bullock in North Carolina.
In the mid-1980s, they established a sound that a former colleague of mine at The Sun described as “ethereally pretty yet grounded in venerable folk melodies,” and they toured together for a decade or more. An album from the late 1990s, “A Winter Solstice with Helicon,” was a compilation of songs they performed in concerts as Christmas approached. They released another album, “Live at the Winter Solstice,” in 2022.
The lads now come together each December to keep the solstice music alive — officially, it’s billed as a “reunion” concert — and, reflecting on their longevity, Kolodner notes that neither snow nor virus ever once kept Helicon from its winter performances.
A storm dumped 17 inches of snow on Baltimore on Dec. 19, 2009, setting a record for single-day snowfall in December, but Helicon performed an abbreviated show at The Stony Run Friends Meeting House, with fans arriving in snowshoes and on cross-country skis. During the pandemic, The Creative Alliance hosted the show.
Years ago, when they performed at the Meyerhoff, Helicon was the sole act. But most of the solstice concerts featured guest performers, some of them big names in bluegrass and folk music. That’s still the case; Bullock, Norman and Kolodner will be joined on stage at Goucher by other artists, some of them kin.
Ken Kolodner’s son, Banjo Brad Kolodner, has an established musical career in his own right; his band, Charm City Junction, will join in the solstice concerts again. He will also perform as part of the Ken & Brad Kolodner Quartet (with bassist Alex Lacquement and Rachel Eddy on fiddle and guitar).
Also among the artists on stage: Chris Norman’s daughter, vocalist Evangeline Norman.
Scottish fiddler Elke Baker and champion step-dancers Jonathon Srour and Claire Shirey round out a lineup performing Scottish, Irish, French Canadian, Appalachian, Bluegrass and other tunes from Kenya, Bolivia, Denmark, France, Finland and Ukraine. That’s rich fare to celebrate the solstice and another trip around the sun.
For ticket information: https://www.wintersolsticeconcert.com/
Dan Rodricks writes this column weekly for the Fishbowl. He can be reached at djrodricks@gmail.com, or via danrodricks.com.
