On their debut Ravello Records release, By The Red, pianist Laura Loewen and baritone Mel Braun – joined by Fred Redekop and Jay Taylor (Big and Dinky) – present a glimpse of the variety of folk music found in Manitoba’s Red River Valley. Drawn from French Canadian, Metis, German Mennonite, Scots, and cowboy culture, and supplemented by the art song-like settings of John Greer, Larry Warkentin, Chester Duncan, Robert Turner, and Heidi Ugrin, these works, dramatic and nostalgic, relate stories that 200 years of life in the Red River Valley have generated.