A pair of very accomplished traveling minstrels will perform at Palenke Arts on Saturday, November 12 at 7:30 pm: Maui, Hawaii’s Dayan Kai will team up with Dixon, California’s Joe Craven for an evening of excellent string-styled acoustic music. Guitars, mandolins, flutes, harmonicas, keyboards, harmonicas and percussion instruments will resonate with old-timey tunes, some familiar covers, and a few songs new even to the performers themselves.

Dayan Kai is a true musical force of nature. Born without sight, he began playing classical piano at the age of two. He plays a diverse array of musical instruments with mesmerizing ease. With a harmony voice most angels would trade their wings in for, Kai moves fluidly between guitars, keyboards, wind instruments and percussion creating a rich musical backdrop for the duo's expansive songwriting. He now lives in Lahaina, Maui.

Joe Craven is a true musician’s musician who plays everything and plays it all really well. When performing live, either solo or with his namesake band, he plays guitar, mandolin, mandocello, percussion, violin and banjo. His website indicates that he also plays “tin can, bed pad, cookie tin…and double necked whatever.”

Craven has played with Stephane Grappelli, David Grisman and Jerry Garcia. That sentence should be all one needs to know about Craven. Add the fact that he is uniquely personable, supremely entertaining, and is an indescribably flashy dresser, and you have a concert tour de force in mismatched vest and pants. And moustache wax!

Improvisation within a loose structure can lead to surprising and very enjoyable results. It should be quite a show, and odds are that Craven and Kai will be smiling fretboard to fretboard. The magic at Palenke Arts starts at 7:30 pm.