Banda de Cuerda en Memoria de Alferd Packer

The Alferd Packer Memorial String Band is five multi-instrumentalists singing and playing fiddles, banjo, guitars, mandolin, hammered dulcimer, accordion, bass, and creative percussion. The band was inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame in 2022. Entering their 47th year, the band has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning for their creation of April 15th Tax Night concerts and dances from the ’90s into the 2000s at the Lawrence Post Office. This unique celebration led to articles on the band in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Readers’ Digest. On dozens of community stages in Kansas, their infectious good humor and high energy have left no toe untapped. The band’s musicians are

Steve Mason: fiddle, guitar

Lauralyn Bodle: fiddle, guitar

Noah Musser: banjo, guitar.

Matt Kirby: hammer dulcimer, percussion, button accordion

Mike Yoder: guitar, mandolin.

All members share vocals and every member has awards in the Walnut Valley Festival New Songs Showcase.

The band’s primary program is a musical concert for a seated audience performed in various indoor and outdoor venues. They have performed in concert halls, high school gymnasiums and even on the back of a moving flat-bed truck. The band can also perform many programs roving amongst crowds at park events and festivals without the need for electricity. The Alferd Packer Memorial String Band’s music combines old time folk, country and bluegrass stylings with contemporary acoustic music. The band’s original songs lean heavily on Kansas history and contemporary stories they have encountered in their journeys and conversations with Kansans. Their song “Threshing Bee” conveys the love of rural steam engine shows. Based on a true story, their song “Up On the Second Floor” tells the tale of a Cottonwood Falls general store with the community funeral home on the second floor. A fiddle duet leads you in the “East Lawrence Waltz” taking a stroll through an old neighborhood in this Kansas community. The band offers workshops on Songwriting in addition to many workshop offerings on the many instruments the band members design, build and play.

Primary Program Performance/Concert = $2000 for 2 hour performance with 15-minute intermission. The band can provide a professional sound system for additional= $400
Workshops = Workshop presentations can be added to a concert date and performance = $200 for 1 hour. Workshops available include: Adult Songwriting, Banjo, Hammer Dulcimer, Guitar construction/luthier discussion, Fiddle. Travel: If hotel stay is required, host venue covers cost of lodging + $25 per diem per band member. Mileage calculated at $.70/mile round trip.

The Alferd Packer Memorial String Band has performed for dozens of Kansas communities. As the band approaches the 50-year mark they continue to offer communities a one-of-a-kind performance of traditional, old-time, country and original acoustic music. Their concerts are full of energy and family humor. The Alferd Packer Memorial String Band is at their musical best in gatherings at community park concerts and festivals. If provided the space and time in a workshop environment, members of the band can expound for hours on all subjects related to the traditions of folk, country, bluegrass and string-band music. And they will make you laugh.

The Alferd Packer Memorial String Band can provide workshops and educational activities. Most can be adaptable depending on the interest of the event and community. Some of the workshops they have provided include, banjo performance and styles, hammer-dulcimer performing and construction, guitar construction/luthier discussion and performance, fiddle styles old and new and songwriting. Each member of the Packer Band has won songwriting contests at the nationally recognized and annual Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield. The band recently provided a short concert and presentation at a school during a course on the solar system and the planets. With numerous space and science songs in their repertoire the band performed their originals “I Miss Pluto,” on the removal of Pluto as the ninth planet and “Superconductivity” a song on quantum phenomenon.