A sold-out crowd filled the Unity of the Valley Church on Sunday, Oct. 12, to listen to the folk stylings of Jeffrey Martin and Anna Tivel. Martin, a former Eugenian, played a series of resounding, emotional music while Tivel played poetic, soft songs. Both played separate sets and performed solely with their voices and guitars, captivating the audience along the way.
In between songs, each of them would joke or tell anecdotes about their time on the road, and the crowd would laugh accordingly — but as the music began to flow from their strings, the audience would be dead silent until erupting into applause the moment the final notes rang out.
“We think a lot about just what it means to hold a space for people in the show,” Tivel said. “There’s all these ways that you learn over the years about how to be more open with yourself and with your emotions, and that creates an energy in the room the more you can just be who you are and inhabit your songs really honestly.”…