The Newell Family will bring their vast repertoire of American, British and European folk songs and tunes to the Room at Trinity on Saturday, January 10.

Ballads and fiddle tunes originating from Appalachia to Transylvania will rock Trinity Church when the Room at Trinity presents the Newell Family Band on Saturday, January 10. This three-generation group of musicians, led by Carter and Kaity Newell, have played their unique repertoire of New England, Maritime and British Isles music around Maine and beyond for three decades.

Carter is a marine biologist whose work has taken him to both sides of the North Atlantic, always with a fiddle close at hand. Kaity is a native of Nottingham, England, and knows a vast repertoire of American and British folk songs and tunes. Their daughters, Maisy, Megan and Helen, are all fiddlers and singers. Eldest daughter Maisy lends a gypsy influence from her travels in eastern Europe and the Balkan states, as well as southern Appalachia, where she has spent several years. Her husband, Eric Dayan, brings his own guitar and singing skills into the mix. Their children, Elijah and Benton, join in on the fiddling. All of the adult Newells have taught at Maine Fiddle Camp since its inception.

The evening will open with a poetry reading by Susann Pelletier and Stephan Cowperthwaite. A native of Lewiston, Pelletier began writing poems when she was eleven years old. Her work gives voice to her deep connections to family and place in Francophone America, as well as her vision of social justice and dignity at home and abroad.

Pelletier’s articles and poems have been published in anthologies, literary journals, chapbooks and political and environmental magazines. A series of her poems appeared in 2008’s “Voyages: A Maine Franco-American Reader.” In 2010, she represented Francophone America as one of eight poets from around the world featured in the Bates International Poetry Festival, which streamed Festival readings, along with accompanying text translations, around the globe.

Joining Pelletier will be Stephan Cowperthwaite, who writes: “As a teacher, I was a pretty good storyteller… It is exciting to find a new way to tell a story (through poetry).”

The program will begin at 7 p.m. Trinity Church is located at 247 Bates Street in Lewiston. Admission is free for students and children. For others, a suggested donation of $10, requested at the door, will support the artists and the many neighborhood ministries of Trinity Church. For more information, call 344-3106 or see theroomtrinity.wordpress.com.