May Market Jam at the Museum
Venue: Alexander Black House & Cultural Center, Blacksburg
Organizations: Eight Point Star, Mike Gangloff
Date: Saturday, May 9, 2026
Time: 2:00 - 4:00 PM
Event Types: Music
Cost: Free
Description:
The Blacksburg Museum and Cultural Foundation wraps up their monthly market jams with their May Market Jam at the Museum series on Saturday, May 9, 2026 at the Alexander Black House.

Join us for this month's session hosted by Mike Gangloff on fiddle with Eight Point Star.

Eight Point Star is a New River Valley-Roanoke collective gathered around old-time and improvisational fiddler Mike Gangloff and bluesy fingerstyle guitarist Matt Peyton that draws on traditional and international roots to create a sound all their own.

With hardanger fiddle, hurdy-gurdy, banjos, gongs, singing bowls and lots more, this is a mostly acoustic sound, but with Matt's theremin and other electronics occasionally rising to the surface sometimes from the Golden Age jazz or Great American Songbook classics that Cara grew up singing, sometimes from the urgent, raw blues that Matt has pursued and sometimes from pure, free improvisation aimed at creating an in-the-moment symphony. This is extended Appalachian music with a story of its own to tell.

Solid, bluesy fingerstyle guitar and soaring, scratchy hardanger fiddle combine for duo explorations; a search for beauty.

Link: https://www.facebook.com/Eight-Point-Star-Band-2115905332014152/

Fiddler Mike Gangloff (Ironto) plays free Appalachian music that weaves together improvisation, melodic composition, and traditional tunes learned from older players in a region around his home in Southwest Virginia. He often performs solo on hardanger-style and octave fiddles, as well as in duos, including this year with UK guitarist C Joynes, with Prices Fork cellist Kaily Schenker, and with fellow Black Twig Pickers guitarist and banjoist Isak Howell. Besides the Black Twigs, Mike is a founding member of Pelt and Eight Point Star.

Links:

• https://mikecaragangloff.bandcamp.com/
• https://www.facebook.com/MikeCaraGangloff
• https://www.instagram.com/gangloffmike/

The Blacksburg Museum and Cultural Foundation is proud to be a cold weather venue for the Market Square Jams. We've got plenty of room in our galleries for players and guests so come pick a tune or sit back and listen.

Admission is free and no registration is required.

Market Jams at the Museum will be held on the second Saturday from January through May.

The Alexander Black House & Cultural Center is located at 204 Draper Road in Blacksburg, VA.

To view the event flyer, visit: https://i.postimg.cc/vHssW9FL/607106999-1393221672814350-8281027623702396450-n.jpg.

For more information, visit: https://blacksburgmuseum.org/ or https://www.facebook.com/blacksburgmuseum/ or https://www.facebook.com/events/2875167959344080/ or https://www.instagram.com/blacksburgmuseum/ or call 540-558-0746.