On Monday night, Feb. 20, Music House hosted a small concert by the Mattabesset String Collective, also known descriptively to students as the Faculty String Band. The event took place in the foyer of the house, with the five members of the band seated in an arc opposite a small, but extremely lively, audience seated on the floor.

Tucked within the cozy pocket of the living area and awash in the glow of multicolored holiday lights, the group played for two hours. The Collective moved between each of its 23 songs with casual banter and professional enthusiasm, trading quips about the sometimes-depressing content of their music and the cleanliness of MuHo’s ceiling, as well as whose class was the most popular.

The Collective itself, which currently consists of five members, is made up entirely of University faculty and staff. The two most senior members of the group, Chair of the Economics Department Gilbert Skillman and Henry Merritt Wriston Chair in Public Policy Marc Eisner, have been playing together for about ten years. As Skillman explained, the University published an article a little while ago that whimsically tagged the pair as a boy band.

In 2004, the Collective picked up Director of the College of the Environment Barry Chernoff and then, only about a year ago, Olin Librarian Rebecca McCallum and Cataloging Academic Computing Manager for the Social Sciences Kevin Wiliarty joined. Despite the wide range of backgrounds, the Collective produced an incredibly smooth and unified sound, with Skillman on both the banjo and the dobra, Chernoff on the guitar, Eisner on the mandolin, Wiliarty on bass guitar, and McCallum on the fiddle. All members provided vocals for various songs. When speaking about the group’s recent additions, the members stressed the flexibility of their collaboration.

“We call it a ‘Collective’ because it’s not a set group of people,” Skillman said. “The group may gain and lose members, but that’s fine. It’s fluid. It keeps going even when the membership changes.”

The Collective’s musical taste, as shown by its recent performance, is just as varied as its membership. According to the group’s website, the Collective plays “an eclectic mix of bluegrass, blues, country and rock, all in a string band style.”

The MuHo show certainly reflected this. Playing almost two dozen songs in two sets, the group covered everything from bluegrass instrumentals to classic rock and treated their audience to leaping, elastic, and swift-footed renditions of “Eight Miles High” by The Byrds, “Cassidy” by The Grateful Dead, and an especially impressive “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns & Roses, a cover which lost none of its energy or verve in stylistic transition.

The highlight, however, was an especially tender cover of John Prine’s classic folk-country “Paradise,” an elegy to the picturesque memories of the songwriter’s childhood that were destroyed by the incursion of large coal companies into his family’s old vacation spot. Couched in intricate, swooping instrumental acrobatics and achingly honest harmonies, one couldn’t help but feel moved by Skillman’s sturdy, unadorned baritone singing lines such as, “When I die let my ashes float down the Green River/ Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam/ I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’/ Just five miles away from wherever I am.”

The tone of the performance certainly wasn’t mournful, though, as the audience clapped, swayed, and sang along to an energetic rendition of “Keep on the Sunny Side” to finish up the night. Perhaps it was the cozy, casual atmosphere, or the self-effacing and vivacious charisma of the performers, but MuHo that night was all but burning with friendly energy against a nimble soundtrack of bluegrass and classic rock.

No moment perhaps better sums up the atmosphere of the evening and, in my mind, no words could ever quite describe the sound.

The Mattabesset String Collective will be performing on Sunday, Feb. 26 at the Cyprus Grill and Restaurant in Middletown from 4-6 p.m. Admission is free. For news on upcoming events, you can visit the Collective’s website at www.mattabesset.com