Cold Chocolate is a genre-bending Americana band that fuses folk, funk and bluegrass to create a unique sound all their own. Led by Ethan Robbins (vocals/guitar/mandolin) and Ariel Bernstein (vocals/percussion/banjo), the Boston-based duo released their fifth full-length album in the fall of 2023. “We’re growing as a band, and I think that shows in our songwriting,” says Robbins. “I see this album as a leaping off point for many more new albums to come, and that’s an exciting prospect,” adds Bernstein.

Punctuated by tight harmonies and skillful musicianship, Cold Chocolate has quickly gained recognition for their original music and high-energy shows. The band has shared bills with Leftover Salmon, David Grisman, and Angelique Kidjo, and regularly performs at venues and music festivals across the country. Jason Verlinde of The Fretboard Journal who covered the band’s FreshGrass Festival set noted “there were plenty of magical moments…I will never forget [watching] Cold Chocolate perform.” Kathy Sands-Boehmer of No Depression raved, “[Ethan] feels the music in his heart and soul and it shows when he plays. Ethan becomes the music on stage. There’s an almost mystical connection between his guitar and the notes that flow out of it.”

Simon Waxman of The Boston Review, writes that Cold Chocolate “sounds softer than the dew on the mountainside, harder than a Harley pushing back red dust, sweeter than true love.” John Lawless of Bluegrass Today offered that “the band’s approach is decidedly modern, with as much an influence from folk and swing as from hard-driving bluegrass.”
 
Robbins began his bluegrass career at Oberlin College, where he started to explore how this hard-driving fast-paced genre could be stretched. A classical violinist from age four, he fell in love with the guitar when he turned fourteen and his father bought him five quintessential albums: The Band’s Music from Big Pink, Bob Dylan’s Bringing it all Back Home, John Hartford’s Steam Powered Aereo-plane, Hank Williams Live at the Grand Ole Opry, and the Grateful Dead’s Workingman’s Dead. Ever since, Robbins has attempted to bring those raw, rootsy sounds into his own original material.

In 2012, Robbins met percussionist Bernstein at a mutual friend’s gig in Boston. Like Robbins, Bernstein also studied classical percussion in college before moving to the drum set. A master of restraint, the loose-wristed Bernstein brings a light and tasteful groove to Cold Chocolate’s tunes, filling out their sound and heightening the band’s live energy. In addition to playing in Cold Chocolate, Bernstein can be found as a sideman with Ray LaMontagne, as well as working on the records of some of the scene’s finest acoustic musicians at his own Honey Pot Studios.
 
As for the band’s intriguing name and the story behind it, “it came from a childhood memory of mine,” says Robbins. “When my brothers and I used to visit my Grandfather in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, the whole drive there from D.C. we’d be in the backseat talking about the frozen Milky Way bars that awaited us in his freezer. I still remember pulling into his driveway after a six-hour drive. He’d come out to meet us–arms wide open for a hug–and the three of us would shoot right past him, headed straight for the freezer, where awaited us the King Size Milky Way Bars. So, in some ways, I dedicate the band name to my Grandfather’s memory.”

Cold Chocolate is currently on tour supporting their latest album, “Now That’s What I Call Cold Chocolate, vol. 1.”

Located in New York’s Capital Region, Everest Rising is a tightly-knit quintet influenced by bluegrass, Americana, rock, jazz and more. Together they create progressive acoustic music that is unique, powerful, and comfortably familiar. With a wide dynamic range, Everest Rising’s material spans from heartfelt laments to all out jams, all executed with instrumental finesse and thoughtful story-telling.

As this summer’s host of the Howlin’ at the Moon Concert Series, Everest Rising aims to support an authentic musical experience for both audience and musicians. Music traditions are meant to be fluid and evolving — this concert series nurtures local and regional musical talent while providing opportunities for cross-pollination of musical ideas, all in an authentic setting that inspires and reminds us of our place within history.

The oldest farm in the Mohawk Valley (1705), Mabee Farm Historic Site was originally settled by Daniel Janse VanAntwerpen around 1670, who established it as a fur trading post to meet Native American traders before they reached Schenectady. In 1705 the property was sold to Jan Mabee and it was handed down to generations of Mabees for 300 years. The farm complex comprises of a 17th Century Dutch House, Inn, Brick Building, 1760 Dutch Barn (originally built in Johnstown, NY), English barn, Mabee family cemetery and other outbuildings, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Depending on conditions, concerts are held either in the hand-pegged 1760s Dutch Barn or under the pavilion behind the George E. Franchere Education Center, both located at the Mabee Farm Historic Site.

Address

Mabee Farm Historic Site
1100 Main Street
Rotterdam Junction, NY 12150

Map