At 6 p.m. this Friday, August 23, Cold Chocolate will close the Free Deane Center Outdoor Summer Concert Series on the outdoor stage at the Deane Center for the Performing Arts at 104 Main Street in Wellsboro. The outdoor stage is located on the Central Avenue side of the building. 

Cold Chocolate is a genre-bending Americana band that fuses folk, funk, and bluegrass to create a unique sound all their own. Featuring singers Ethan Robbins on guitar and  mandolin and Ariel Bernstein on drums and banjo, this power duo from Boston is impressing audiences throughout New England and beyond. 

In the fall of 2023, Robbins and Bernstein released their fifth full-length album.”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 new albums to come and that’s  an exciting prospect,” adds Bernstein.

Punctuated by tight harmonies and skillful musicianship, and with a focus on songwriting, Cold Chocolate has quickly gained recognition for their original music and high-energy shows. The band has shared billing with Leftover Salmon, David Grisman, and Angelique Kidjo, and regularly performs at venues and music festivals across the country.

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.

In 2012, Robbins met percussionist Bernstein at a mutual friend’s gig in Boston. Bernstein  studied classical percussion in college before moving to a 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. 

The band’s intriguing name Cold Chocolate came from a childhood memory according to Robbins. “Every time my family drove from Washington, DC to Wilkes Barre, PA to visit my grandfather, my brothers and I would 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 the six-hour trip. Our grandfather would come out to meet the three of us and we would shoot right past him heading for the freezer.and the king size Milky Way bars. So, in some ways, I dedicate the band name to my grandfather’s memory.”

The Deane Center’s Summer Outdoor Concert Series is free thanks to the support and generosity of the EQT Foundation, Blaise Alexander Family Dealerships, and the Wellsboro Area Chamber of Commerce. 

Audience members are welcome to bring lawn chairs and sit on the grassy area in front of the outdoor stage or on Central Avenue, which will be closed to traffic between Main Street and the Warehouse Theatre from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. this Friday.
 

If weather is an issue this free concert will be moved indoors into the Deane Center’s Coolidge Theatre. Donations are always appreciated.

For more information about the free concert series, call the Deane Center at 570-724-6220, or visit deanecenter.com.