Brian Kay is a modern-day troubadour. As a singer and multi-instrumentalist, he has performed throughout the United States and beyond. He specializes in ancient songs of the world, is a songwriter, plays a variety of instruments, writes poetry, and paints. Brian has been featured at distinguished venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Shriver Hall, and The Boston Early Music Festival. His live radio appearances include NPR, Baltimore's WYPR, Boston's WGBH, and Cleveland's WCLV. He is the only two-time winner of The Lute Society of America's national lute competition and the 2013 recipient of Peabody Conservatory's "Excellence in Early Music Award". He has appeared with Apollo's Fire, Ayreheart, Hesperus, The Broken Consort, and is a founding member of the early music improvisation group Divisio. Brian’s lute and oud playing have been referred to as "masterful" (Nuvo) and "phenomenal" (Early Music America). In his cabaret this evening, Brian will perform ballads that have been passed down through the centuries by singer-songwriters, folk musicians and poets all over the world. He will offer an enormous range of interpretational possibilities spanning from historical performance practice to very modern interpretations. "The most affecting vocal performance" -The Cleveland Plain Dealer