When South Berwick musician David Surette passed away in December 2021, the many tributes that appeared in regional and national publications made one thing clear: through a combination of generosity, passion for music and preternatural fret work, the man had an impressive ability to bring people together.
Surette’s power to spark joy with music was on display again last weekend, nearly four years after his death at the age of 58 after a long battle with cancer.
About 150 friends, family and fellow musicians gathered Oct. 19 at Concord Community Music School in Concord, N.H., to honor Surette with the Country Dance & Song Society’s Lifetime Contribution Award and to recognize his contributions as an inspiring music performer, teacher, scholar and mentor.
Surette, who lived in South Berwick with his wife and longtime musical collaborator, Susie Burke, and their daughters, Isa and Julianna Burke, was revered by musicians in New England and beyond for his virtuoso musicianship.
As part of last Sunday’s event, Susie, Isa and Julianna together performed a Surette original, “Hear Those Trumpets Play,” before accepting the lifetime contribution award on Surette’s behalf.
“One of the most isolating parts of grieving is the sense that you are going it alone – the rest of the world keeps turning, yet your world has totally changed,” Julianna Burke told the South Berwick Reporter after the ceremony. “It was a huge privilege to be surrounded by a community who cared so deeply for my dad, who traveled from all over the place to be present, share his music, reflect on memories, and keep his spirit alive.
“There are many wonderful people who are never honored this way, in life or in death,” Julianna continued. “Hearing stories I had never heard before, talking to people who knew my dad in a totally different context at a totally different time, was a priceless gift.”
As a musician, Surette was known for his solo fingerpicking arrangements of Celtic tunes, his guitar and mandolin work with influential contra dance groups, and later for his live performances of Grateful Dead covers that have garnered tens of thousands of views on streaming sites.
In all, Surette recorded about two dozen albums in various genres as a solo artist, with bands, and with Burke, his partner of 34 years. He also published three instructional books of his guitar, mandolin and fiddle arrangements of traditional Celtic, Breton, French and Italian tunes, which he collected through his travels and collaborations with fellow musicians.
Despite his mastery of the guitar and mandolin, Surette’s joy in playing always kept him striving to learn more and expand his repertoire, friends say.
“David was held in high esteem by a litany of musical communities, such as the New England contra dance world, the Celtic music world, the bluegrass world, and the fingerpicking guitar world, to name a few,” fellow Maine multi-instrumentalist and Surette collaborator Steve Roy, of Eliot, said in a 2021 article in Bluegrass Today.
“His musicianship was such that whenever he developed an interest in a particular style, he would master it to the point where he was able to make a significant contribution to the musical legacy of the genre,” Roy stated.
Surette, known as a champion of other musicians, spearheaded the creation of the folk department at the Concord Community Music School, where he served as its director and taught for 30 years.
“One of the luckiest days of my life was the day David Surette walked into my office … and said, ‘I think I could really make a home for folk music here,'” Peg Senter, founder and director of the Concord Music School, said during the Oct. 19 ceremony.
In 2001 Surette founded the ongoing Mandolin Festival at the school, which brings in top players from around the U.S. and Europe each March to collaborate and perform. Periodically, he would also travel through Europe to find lesser-known traditional songs and melodies and give them renewed life through his books, teachings and performances.
Surette also organized, taught and performed at music events and festivals across the U.S., including the annual Maine Fiddle Camp, and taught private lessons out of his studio in South Berwick.
Friends and collaborators at the ceremony described Surette as “supportive and generous,” “a real mentor and a real hero,” and expressed both awe and gratitude for “how important he made every single person in the room feel.”
“As a musician he was lovely to play with, an ego-free conversationalist able to go anywhere the conversation led,” Joe Walsh, a mandolinist who collaborated with Surette, told Bluegrass Today in 2021. “He was so good at lifting others up, supporting his fellow musicians, and seeing and bringing out the best in all of us.”
Fittingly, the 2.5-hour ceremony was a concert layered with equal parts joy, appreciation, reflection and mournfulness. About 20 musicians – many of them former students, bandmates and collaborators – took turns reflecting on Surette’s gifts as a musician and friend; then showed exactly what they meant through song.
Many of the tunes performed were written by Surette, but at least two musicians played original work they had written specifically in his honor. Most were done on guitar and mandolin, Surette’s own instruments of choice, but there were also pieces on piano and violin.
While Surette’s life ended far too soon, it was clear his legacy will live on in the students, collaborators, friends and audiences he reached over the years.
“We see it in the thriving new generation of New England traditional musicians,” the ceremony’s program noted. “We see it in the many players who continue to listen to his albums, learn tunes from his books, and make music together.”
