Longview country folk duo Over The Moon is en route to Kansas City, but it's stopping in Turner Valley first for two shows.
The duo is made up of married couple Craig Bignell and Suzanne Levesque, who both play a variety of instruments but explore new ones with Over The Moon.
"We're both full-time, career musicians," said Bignell. "We met and got married, we tried this acoustic music thing ourselves because we like to sing together and it's worked out really well for us.
"So, we're playing instruments that we don't normally play. I'm a drummer, percussionist mostly, and Suzanne is a electric bass player mostly, but now with this group, we both get to play acoustic guitar. I play banjos and and different things like that, and we're having a blast doing it."
Bignell prides himself on Over The Moon's musical talent.
"We record and produce our own music at our own studio at home," he said. "No computer tricks either, all of it's real music. Everyone samples and programs and loops and everything, and we don't do that at all."
Over The Moon's work has been recognized by international reviews and prestigious awards in Canada.
"We got a Juno nomination, Canadian Folk Music Award nomination and were on the long list for a Grammy Award last year," said Bignell.
Their album Chinook Waltz earned a Juno Award nomination in 2022 for Best Traditional Roots Album.
Beyond the recognition and accolades, the duo's music has taken it across the world.
"We just got back from China," said Bignell. "We were there for two weeks and we played the biggest venues across China. We were in the UK last year, and now we're heading for the UK again for two months this spring. We travel a lot. I think we're going to India soon too."
The globetrotting duo's next stop after Turner Valley will be in Kansas City for the 2024 Folk Alliance International Conference, the largest gathering of folk musicians in the world.
"Like 2,000 musicians come," said Bignell. "Another couple thousand or more industry people come like agents, record companies, theatre owners, festival runners and all that kind of stuff.
"So we thought we'd just do a couple benefit concerts to raise money to do that. So that's what these concerts are going to be."
The shows are titled 'Kansas City Trail' and will see the globetrotting duo return to its Foothills roots.
"We take our music really seriously but we don't take ourselves seriously," said Bignell. "So we just have fun and we treat the audience like it's a bunch of friends coming over to our living room to hang out."
The two shows will be at the Turner Valley United Church on Saturday, Feb. 10 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 11 at 2 p.m.
Learn more about Over The Moon and get tickets here.
