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Ripley Presents: Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light
Bookish bite. Sharp harmonies.
Songs about saints, scientists, and stubborn women.
First Congregational Church, Winchester: Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, 7:30 pm
Tickets Are Sold on EventBrite: https://tr.ee/RPrstl
Live in person and live streamed from the stunning Ripley Chapel, First Congregational Church is pleased to present Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light, a Boston-based string band making music that blends folk tradition with feminist storytelling, poetic detail, and just enough grit.
At the center is Sumner’s songwriting—rooted in history, myth, and personal reckoning—carried by close harmonies, upright bass, acoustic guitar, and fiddle. The trio features Kat Wallace on fiddle and vocals and Mike Siegel on upright bass and vocals, whose playing brings both tension and tenderness to the sound. Their sound is spare and intimate, sometimes eerie, sometimes sweet, always intentional. They call it Femericana—sharp-edged Americana with a splash of feminine rage.
- When: Friday, February 6, 2026, at 7:30 pm
- Where: Ripley Chapel at 21 Church Street, Winchester, MA, 01890, Vine Street entrance.
- Tickets: $20 for adult (both live in person and live streamed); $5 for students with ID.
- Eventbrite: Ticket Link
About Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light:
Sumner has performed at the Library of Congress, where five of her original songs are now archived, and was a 2024 winner of the Kerrville New Folk competition. Her song “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison)” struck a nerve—streamed over 300,000 times and picked up by dancers, theater directors, and deep listeners who saw themselves in its story. It’s been tattooed on arms, sung in audition rooms, and carried into classrooms and protests. The kind of song people hold onto.
Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light has toured coast to coast, bringing their spellbinding live show to listening rooms, libraries, farms, and festivals across the country. They’ve appeared at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Earl Scruggs Festival, IBMA, and legendary folk listening rooms like Caffé Lena and Club Passim, where their shows have become a staple of the Boston folk scene.
Their latest release, The Traveling Light Sessions, reimagines Sumner’s studio album Heartless Things—recorded live around one microphone with no overdubs. Just the way they play it.
What Others Have to Say
From Cover Lay Down:
Though Sumner has roots in both the bluegrass and classical worlds, this is true-blue singer-songwriter folk through and through, too: achingly clear, and wide open to the world, with twang and tenderness enough to carry us through the fire of an unusually difficult year.
Americana UK:
Above her superb musicians soars Sumner’s almost brittle sounding vocals. She has a cutglass edge to her at times which enables her to wring the emotion out of her songs, some of which have been years gestating before she got the chance to record them. The three covers are given new and interesting takes, putting her stamp on them and making them her own.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Ripley Chapel can be found at First Congregational Church, Winchester, 21 Church St. The entry is located on the Vine Street side of the church. Please use the accessible ramp entrance, and Ripley Chapel will be directly to your right as you enter the building.
Quick Links:
https://rachelsumnermusic.com/
https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2024/08/rachel-sumner-and-traveling-light-concert-and-interview/
