Turning Tides Music: Ticketing
Kommuna Lux from Ukraine, May 30, 2026
Unity of the Valley, 3912 Dillard Rd, Eugene
Come fall in love with Odesa, Ukraine, the Pearl of the Black Sea! Kommuna Lux brings you the heritage music of their beloved hometown. Klezmer, Balkan, and Urban Chanson, with a dash of Ukrainian Folk and powered by rocket fuel, Kommuna Lux impacts the crowd with a nostalgic, high-energy Big Band sound from the bygone days of speakeasies and rum runners. When Volodymyr Gitin raises that clarinet to his lips, he becomes the only man in the room—you can’t help but utterly fall into his virtuoso arms. “Heavyweight Champion” Oleg Vasianovich holds his accordion like it’s light as a feather, while he develops the foundation of each melody. Layers of complexity are added by the bold, bright trumpet of Andrei Okhramovich and the sassy, playful trombone of Yaroslav Besh. Viktor Kirilov never stops dancing as he plays his acoustic guitar, and you never know when Sergei Poltorak will pause on the percussion to punk the rest of the band with a sly prank. At center stage is sultry powerhouse Bagrat Tsurkan, whose hot buttered voice and nonstop energy compel everyone to the dance floor.
These conservatory-trained musicians started out playing flash mobs in the markets, piers, and streets of Odesa, and quickly moved up to local and national stages. After winning Germany’s “Iron Eversteiner” prize for folk music, they began touring the world but had a falling-out with their vocalist. They soon discovered “Baggi” singing background for another band, and knew they’d found the perfect front man. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the band went into shock along with the rest of their countrymen. One musician even left to join the army. But the others soon decided that they could do more good with their instruments than guns and began touring Europe in earnest to raise money and support for Ukraine. They raised thousands of dollars that summer, and became the “go to band” for Klezmer music in both Germany and Poland. Their first USA tour in Fall 2023 was so successful, they founded a 501-c3 nonprofit to make it even easier to support Ukraine. People don’t just listen to Kommuna Lux. They fall in love! No one can resist these playful, passionate Ukrainian musicians, who have so much fun on stage that you get caught up in their joy.
Folk Hill: Alice Howe and Freebo with Clive Carroll, June 24, 2026
Oak Hill School Outdoor Amphitheater, 86397 Eldon Schafer Dr, Eugene
Alice Howe & Freebo have undeniable chemistry. Rock bass legend Freebo weaves his fretless stylings into Alice’s soulful, impeccably-tuned vocals for a harmony-driven performance showcasing two uniquely compelling songwriters.
Best known for his ten years playing bass with Bonnie Raitt, Freebo has toured and recorded with some of the greatest artists of his generation, including John Mayall, Ringo Starr, Crosby Stills & Nash, Maria Muldaur, Joe Walsh, and Dr. John. For the past twenty-five years, he’s been writing, recording, and performing his own original music. To hear Alice Howe sing is to be enraptured by the natural, unaffected beauty of her voice. There’s no artifice, no histrionics — just honest, authentic, emotionally resonant singing in the tradition of the roots music that shaped her. She recently had the honor of being named Best Female Artist at the International Acoustic Music Awards.
Freebo and Alice have been working as a duo since 2017, and he produced her latest record Circumstance, recorded at iconic FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Their latest album Alice Howe & Freebo Live is their first release as a duo, and it debuted as the #1 Most Played Album on the Folk Radio Charts.
Clive Carroll’s unique tone, versatility, and unmistakeable voice as a composer, have seen him become one of the world’s premier acoustic guitar players and “…arguably the most accomplished fingerstylist in the world today…” (Total Guitar Magazine).
Clive made his musical debut at age two as a banjo-strumming cowboy singing nursery rhymes. His parents had a passion for Irish, American country, and old-time music, and it wasn’t long before he was playing in the family band on a homemade banjo. By his early teens, guitar in hand, Clive was traversing the worlds of soul, pop, funk and traditional Irish music, balancing his affinity for Slayer with the etudes of Tárrega. This breadth of musical curiosity was to become one of his strengths; even as a child Clive was as comfortable accompanying a group of folk singers as he was jamming along to Nirvana or performing on banjo and guitar in the orchestral pits for musicals.
Clive went on to earn a 1st Class Honours Degree in Composition and Guitar from the famed Trinity College of Music in London, all the while balancing his classical work with forays into the world of the steel-string guitar. By the time he graduated from Trinity, Clive had not only penned orchestral works, he had a written an album’s worth of solo acoustic guitar music. A chance meeting with English guitar legend John Renbourn proved the catalyst for Clive’s debut album, “Sixth Sense”, which Renbourn deemed “a milestone in the journey of the steel-string guitar”. He subsequently took Clive on the road with him and the pair toured North America and Europe together, launching Clive’s solo performing career.