Rising Sun Presents:
Rachael & Vilray with Taylor Ashton at The Colonial Theatre
Friday, December 11, 2026
Doors at 7:00 PM | Show at 8:00 PM
All Ages
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About Rachael & Vilray
Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify
Since their formation in 2015, Brooklyn-based duo Rachael & Vilray have achieved a certain timeless quality with their singular take on traditional pop. Though rooted in the language of an earlier age, their songs transcend nostalgia with wit and a flair for the theatrical. On their third album West of Broadway, vocalist Rachael Price (also of Lake Street Dive) and guitarist/singer/songwriter Vilray evolve their music’s previous dreaminess to achieve a refreshing angularity built on left-of-center instrumentation (e.g., vibraphone and alto saxophone coasting above the moody strains of baritone sax and trombone). Produced by Dan Knobler (Allison Russell, Bahamas), West of Broadway unfolds in a series of sharply drawn vignettes inspired by a recent fascination with classic musicals—bringing their luminous vocals to offbeat tales of love and heartache along city streets. Recorded at the legendary Sear Sound in Manhattan, West of Broadway took shape with the help of renowned musicians like saxophonist Steve Wilson (a former member of Chick Corea’s Origin sextet) and drummer John Riley (Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie). Over the course of 10 lush and effervescent tracks, the album delivers standouts like “Love Comes Around” (a joyously romantic piece that set the direction for the LP’s West Coast jazz-inspired aesthetic), “My Key to Gramercy Park” (a fantastically salty number narrated by a well-to-do character who lives in lonely suspicion of all those who covet their key to the notoriously exclusive private park), and “Off Broadway” (on which golden-voiced comedian Stephen Colbert joins in for what the duo dubs an “oddly grumpy anti-Broadway screed”). Thanks in large part to the colorful detail and extravagant personality of Rachael & Vilray’s storytelling, West of Broadway ultimately immerses the audience in an exquisitely out-of-time vision of their beloved New York City.
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About Taylor Ashton
Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify
Recorded over the course of a 4,000-mile cross-country roadtrip, Taylor Ashton’s gorgeous new album, Stranger To The Feeling, is a sonic odyssey through the heart of America, one that works its way chronologically and geographically from coast to coast as it meditates on the meaning of closeness and connection in an age of increasing isolation. The performances here are warm and inviting, anchored by Ashton’s deft guitar and banjo work and rich, easygoing melodicism, and the recordings—helmed by producer Jacob Blumberg and captured with a mix of old friends and new collaborators including Courtney Hartman, Big Thief’s Buck Meek, Lake Street Dive’s Rachael Price, Vulfpeck’s Theo Katzman, Late Show bandleader Louis Cato, and Mipso’s Jacob Sharp—are alternately sparse and lush, with arrangements often serving as aural reflections of their physical environments. From a blanket in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to a trailer in Wyoming’s Bighorn National Forest, from a backyard in Wisconsin to a spiritual vortex in Arizona, the settings are inextricable from the songs, and the result is a moving, transportive collection that manages to evoke both the gentle virtuosity of Nick Drake and the buoyant wit of Paul Simon, all while forging its own distinctive path through a landscape at once foreign and familiar.
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Rising Sun Presents is an independent, full-service live event production company based in Ardmore, PA that brings more than 1,500 indoor and outdoor events to life per year throughout the greater Philadelphia area and beyond. Visit RisingSunPresents.com for a full list of upcoming events and how to get in touch.