UPDATED: Feb. 16, 2018 at 3:31 a.m.

Contemporary folk band Gathering Time believes in the power of live music — so much so that member Stuart Markus said it’s “almost evangelical.” This Friday, the group will bring its show to Syracuse as part of the Folkus Project.

The band, which hails from Long Island, is made up of Markus, Hillary Foxsong and Gerry McKeveny. The group started making music together in 2012.

Gathering Time will play selections from all their original CDs, including “Keepsake.” “Keepsake” debuted at No. 1 on the Folk DJ Charts in March 2016.

The group will also play classic folk songs, as well as covers of songs from artists that have influenced them, McKeveny said.

Foxsong, one of the original members of the band, describes their sound as indie folk pop with deep roots in 1960s folk. But McKeveny, the most recent member to join the band, describes it as contemporary folk pop music with a heavy emphasis on vocal harmonies.

McKeveny says the trio is “heavily influenced by Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Peter Paul and Mary.”

“You will sing along … you will go home with some song stuck in your head,” Foxsong said. “It’s about the vocal, but it’s never music that wants to make noise. It’s music that wants to touch you, it wants to communicate something.”

Foxsong was introduced to music at a young age by her grandmother, who was a professional singer in the 1920s. She credits her grandmother with teaching her the vocal harmonies her bandmates have praised her for.

McKeveny, who has been a full-time working musician for 35 years, said branching into folk music was something he had always wanted to do. He credited artists like Joe Cocker, Richard Shindell, Shawn Colvin and Bruce Cockburn with inspiring him to pursue folk music.

The youngest of six children in his family, McKeveny said he was exposed to artists like Bob Dylan from a young age through his siblings.

“We are each bringing sets of influences to the table,” McKeveny said of him and his bandmates. “So, each of us brings a different set of skills and makes the whole stronger. What ends up happening is unique and something no one of us could do on our own.”

Markus decided to become a folk musician because he loved hearing the sound of an acoustic guitar and writing songs. Through a songwriting workshop he got to meet one of the previous members of Gathering Time, Glen Roethel, a decade prior to its formation.

Twenty years ago, Markus realized that the folk community was a good place to be as a songwriter. He said it was “very nurturing and encouraging for people (who) wanted to write meaningful music meant for acoustic instruments.”

Gathering Time first started in May 2006, as an extension of Roethel’s gigs, Foxsong and Markus said. Roethel would play solo every Tuesday at an antique car rally in the town where he and Foxsong lived.

It was through these street fairs that Roethel got to meet Foxsong, who was invited onstage during one of his performances after he noticed her, in the audience, singing along to one of his songs.

“I was over there singing along with Glen, and Stuart just shows up and smiles at me and gets on the mic with me,” Foxsong said. “And I’m like ‘Who is this guy?’ And then, when he opened his mouth and I heard the three-part harmony, I was like ‘Oh wow, this could be a thing!’ and it snowballed from there.”

Roethel would eventually leave the band to pursue a solo career.

The Folkus Project is a not-for-profit organization started in the fall of 2000 to bring live music to Syracuse, according to its website. It is entirely run by volunteers, and this will be the band’s first collaboration with the organization.

Markus said the band heard about the Folkus Project through the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance conference, a four-day gathering of folk musicians that’d held every November.

For the upcoming show, Markus said the audience should expect “a lot of harmony, a lot of energy, some touching moments and some funny ones and hopefully a lot of joy afterward.” He said he hopes the audience leaves with “a sense of the warm, moving feelings that come from not just hearing but participating in the musical experience.”

“To do something you love and to see it being appreciated to that degree is an extremely validating feeling,” Markus said. “When you’ve done something that brings you joy, and you see other people getting so much joy out of it too, you can’t help but feel great.”

The group will take the stage this Friday at 8 p.m. at the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society on East Genesee Street. Admission is $15. Tickets and more information can be found on the Folkus website.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the location of the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance conference was misstated. The conference is held in the Northeast every year. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on February 14, 2018 at 11:20 pm

Contact Jony: ktsampah@syr.edu