The Hillbilly Thomists, a Bluegrass band of Dominican friars, will be returning to the Athenaeum Center on a rare US tour! They first graced our stage in 2022, and their tight harmonies and finger-pickin’ melodies brought the house down. We couldn’t be more excited for them to play on our Historic Main Stage this September.
The friars started playing music together as a casual creative outlet during their time at their Dominican House of Studies in DC; and no one was more surprised than they when the album they’d recorded for family and friends reached #3 on the Billboard Bluegrass chart in 2017!
Since then, they’ve been busy doing what Dominicans do best – preaching, teaching, and serving. Despite living on different continents, the Thomists have managed to keep writing music, and record not one, but two more albums. Their latest album, Holy Ghost Power, reached #5 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart in 2022.
In their own words,
With this new record of original songs, The Hillbilly Thomists keep one foot rooted in the Blue Ridge foothills of Bluegrass and Americana while stepping across the Mississippi into the land of New Orleans delta blues and old Western country. Flowing from the Dominican friars’ life of contemplation, study, and preaching, the thirteen tracks of Holy Ghost Power sing of redeeming love and old-time religion, Diet Coke and Original Sin, pilgrimage and the sweet prospect of the life that awaits beyond the River Jordan’s stormy banks. They’re songs for people who are made of a little bit of angel and a little bit of dust.
Gather your friends and family, and join us for a lively, soulful, and inspiring evening of Bluegrass music with the Hillbilly Thomists!
