Maggie Rigby and Holly Arrowsmith LIVE at the Taproom

Maggie Rigby is a singer, songwriter, guitar and banjo player from Castlemaine, Central Victoria, Australia. The eldest child of Central Victorian folk musicians, she grew up sitting under the chairs of tunes players, sleeping on the floor at the side of side of stages or singing harmonies with her sisters in the back of the car.

In the last 10 years she has toured all over the world with her iconic Melbourne folk band, The Maes (formerly The Mae Trio) with her sister Elsie Rigby. The band have produced three multi-award-winning albums, sold out shows around the world and played many of the world’s most prestigious roots music festivals including the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in the US, Edmonton Folk Festival in Canada, and Celtic Connections Festival in the UK.

This new solo project was born from the pandemic. From the sudden, seismic shift from full-time, touring folk musician to full-time carer for a grandparent with dementia. From six years of perpetual, northern and southern hemisphere summers to two long, lonely winters in lockdown processing a career change, a breakup and how to be an adult when you are sitting still. Her self-produced, debut EP, Best Love in the Universe is gentle, wintry, complex, catchy, joyful and bold. It features Maggie’s spine-tingling vocals, intricate songwriting as well as exploring her skills on guitar, banjo, marimba and glockenspiel and percussion. The EP was released on October 27th, 2023.

Born on the high desert in Santa Fe New Mexico and raised in the mountains of Southern New Zealand, multi award-winning songwriter Holly Arrowsmith is both poet and storyteller. With the conviction that the deeply personal is also the universal, Arrowsmith's lyrics orbit around what it means to be human, and offer up prayer-like responses to our most intimate struggles.

A leader in New Zealand’s contemporary Folk and Alt-Country movement, Holly’s sound pays homage to tradition without being too reverential. She embodies Americana through her mastery of vocal dynamics, and nuanced lyrics, creating a gorgeous sonic portrait of life's ups and downs, real emotion and optimism, a baptism by sparks. Holly shape-shifts from powerful to intimate with ease.

Holly has won the hearts of music lovers close to home and abroad, touring throughout Aotearoa, Australia, and North America, and sharing stages with Sixto Rodriguez, CW Stoneking, Tami Neilson, Jessica Pratt, Nadia Reid, Marlon Williams and Tiny Ruins. 

She will be joined by guitarist Tom Healy for this show.