The 2025 season of Concerts in West K! kicks off Friday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m., with a concert by the duo of Newberry & Verch.

The Newberry & Verch show is part of the long-running Concerts in West K! series, produced by Mousam River Music in collaboration with the Brick Store Museum. The museum is located at 117 Main St. in Kennebunk. The concert will be held in the museum’s Dane Street Program Center.

Joe Newberry and April Verch are musicians who grew up steeped in the traditions of home and hearth — Joe in the Missouri Ozarks, and April in the Ottawa Valley of Canada.

Newberry, according to a news release, comes from a family of singers and dancers. He took up the guitar and banjo as a boy and learned fiddle tunes from great Missouri fiddlers. Known around the world for his clawhammer banjo playing, Newberry is also a powerful guitarist, singer and songwriter. The Gibson Brothers’ version of his song, “Singing As We Rise,” featuring guest vocalist Ricky Skaggs, won the 2012 IBMA Gospel Recorded Performance Award.

With Eric Gibson, he shared the 2013 IBMA Song of the Year Award for “They Called It Music.” In addition to his work with Verch, he plays in a duo with mandolin icon Mike Compton. He also plays and teaches at festivals and workshops in North America and abroad.

Verch grew up listening to her dad’s country band play for dances in the Ottawa Valley. She started step dancing at age 3 and fiddling at age 6. Before launching her professional career, Verch was the first woman to win both the Canadian Grand Masters and Canadian Open Fiddling Championships.

She has released 14 solo recordings to date, receiving JUNO, Canadian Folk Music and Independent Music nominations and awards for several of those releases. She has also released an instructional stepdance DVD, a book of original fiddle tunes, and a Canadian Fiddle tune teaching method for Mel Bay. Verch was one of six fiddlers who represented the Canadian fiddle tradition to the world at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, as part of a segment called Fiddle Nation featured in the opening ceremonies.

In a Newberry & Verch show, original songs join timeless classics, and lively fiddle and banjo numbers combine with traditional dance steps. They have toured across North America, Europe, and the United Kingdom. They have played major festivals including Nova Scotia’s Celtic Colours International Festival, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in New York state, and Celtic Connections in Glasgow, Scotland. Their 2018 CD, “Going Home,” was released to wide acclaim. In 2021 they released “On This Christmas Day,” an album to accompany their annual Holiday Cheer Tour.

Admission to the concert is $25 per person. Advance tickets or reservations are advised. Tickets are available at brickstoremuseum.org/calendar. Reservations may be made by email to paul.wells@mousamrivermusic.net.