In 1992, Randy Armstrong and Genevieve Aichele began collaborating as Armstrong & Aichele, a performance ensemble which merges music, movement, storytelling and theatre to animate timeless stories that appeal to audiences of all ages. Together they perform "World Tales," with music played on traditional instruments from all over the globe -- the Native American flute, the African djembe drum, and the North Indian sitar, just to name a few.

The stories include traditional favorites like Anansi the Spider and original retellings of ancient myths. "World Tales" performances and "A Mosaic of Music & Stories from Around the World," the album of the show, have won rave reviews all over the country.

Working as Artists-in-Residence at dozens of schools and community organizations throughout New England, Armstrong & Aichele have been the recipients of numerous grants from the NH State Council on the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Download bios (PDF) for Randy Armstrong & Genevieve Aichele.

Hailed by the Boston Globe as a "sure-fingered guitar virtuoso", Randy Armstrong is the
co-founder of DOAH WORLD MUSIC ENSEMBLE and UNU MONDO. With a collection of over two hundred instruments from around the world, including acoustic, synthesizer and nylon-string guitars, sitar, balofon, djembe, koto, charango, mbira and a wide variety of percussion and stringed instruments, he has amazed audiences throughout the United States, Canada, Alaska, and India. Randy recently returned from Central America and West Africa performing and studying with Garifuna musicians and drummers in Dangriga and Hopkins, Belize and Ewe, Fanti and Ga drummers in Accra and Legon, Ghana. He has performed at Carnegie Recital Hall and festivals at Lincoln Center in New York City. In 1998, Randy was selected as an artist representative to attend a Cultural Trade Mission to Ireland, Northern Ireland and England sponsored by Governor Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and in May 2005 attended a Curatorial Research trip on Son Jarocho music in Xalapa and Veracruz, Mexico for the New England Foundation for the Arts. He was appointed by NH Governor Craig Benson as an arts councilor for the NH State Council on the Arts in 2003 and reappointed by Governor John Lynch in 2008. In the summer of 2007, Randy toured internationally in Croatia, Slovenia, Italy and South Africa and celebrated the digital and compact disc release of the new Armstrong & Aichele: World Tales Volume Two, winner of several Parents Choice Awards. He created original scores for the 2009 New Hampshire Theatre Project production of William Shakespeare’s, HAMLET funded by a grant from Meet the Composer, Inc. and the 2010 Phillips Exeter Academy production of MACBETH. In 2012, Randy performed a concert tour in Cuba with Voices From The Heart and in April 2015, he will perform with ConTutti in Puerto Rico.

As a composer and performing artist with Do’a World Music Ensemble, his music has been acclaimed as "a marvelous kaleidoscope of shifting melodies, rhythms, and instrumental colors" by DOWNBEAT magazine. CD REVIEW stated, "guitarist Randy Armstrong…has composed some of the brightest contemporary instrumentals this side of the hemisphere." Do’a’s fifth album, WORLD DANCE, released in 1988, reached the top 10 of several national charts including #7 in BILLBOARD.

Randy Armstrong scored the music for a four-part PBS series, DINNER ON THE DINER produced by British filmmaker, Jon Guilbert. The series explores four famous train rides through Spain, Scotland, South Africa and Malaysia/Thailand with a double-CD released concurrently with its premiere by Ellipsis Arts nationally distributed by Ryko. "Evocative...Timeless" --Barnes & Noble.com. The programs aired on the PBS network in June 2000. In May 2003 his album, NO REGRETS was released by DOMO Records and reached the top 10 of several radio airplay charts. In 2005, Randy joined forces with 16 artists from coast to coast on a compilation CD entitled the TSUNAMI RELIEF PROJECT released by Atta Girl Records with all profits aiding Tsumami survivors through the CARE Agency. Randy Armstrong has performed, recorded and appeared on over 40 albums and film scores.

Randy holds a degree in composition and world music studies and has conducted workshops at schools, universities and cultural institutions throughout the United States. He was the Director of the African Drumming & World Percussion Ensemble and faculty instructor of North Indian sitar and tabla at Phillips Exeter Academy from 1991 to 2020. Since 2002, he has taught World Music for the Graduate Studies Integrated Arts Program at Plymouth State University.

He also performs with the award-winning storytelling, music and movement duo, ARMSTRONG & AICHELE: WORLD TALES that has been receiving wide critical acclaim. With Do’a World Music Ensemble and as a solo artist, he has been the recipient of numerous grants from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the state arts councils of Arkansas, Arizona and New York and the National Endowment of the Arts. He has shared the stage with such artists as Dizzy Gillespie, King Sunny Ade, the Paul Winter Consort, Babatunde Olatunji, Fatoumata Diawara, Pierre Bensusan, Michael Hedges, Eddie Palmieri, Mose Allison and Richie Havens.

Genevieve Aichele is a theatre artist – a performer, director, teacher and playwright. A resident of Portsmouth, NH, she received her degree in Music & Theatre for Community Programs from the University of New Hampshire in 1975, graduating summa cum laude. She is a co-founder and currently serves as artistic director of New Hampshire Theatre Project, based at the West End Studio Theatre in Portsmouth. Genevieve is a juried Roster Artist/Trainer for VSA-Arts International and the NH State Council on the Arts, an adjunct faculty member of the Plymouth State University Graduate Program, and an affiliate of The Woodland Group. She has performed, directed and taught performing arts from Boston to Seattle to West Palm Beach, from Dublin to Hong Kong to Frankfurt.

Genevieve Aichele has directed professional and student performers in a variety of theatrical venues throughout New England. Recent professional directing credits include the The Music Hall’s 125th Anniversary production of Caste and John Wopps, for which she won the 2002 Spotlight Award for Best Director. Genevieve has also directed and toured with Clara’s Dream: A Jazz Nutcracker for MaD Theatricals; directed Follies: A Vaudeville in 9 Acts for the Portsmouth Percussive Dance Festival with special guest Bill Irwin; and directed Ballet Theatre Workshop and Festival Ballet of Rhode Island in Carnival of the Animals and Knights of the Square Tables in collaboration with choreographer Mihailo Djuric.

Genevieve has directed thousands of youth during her 30 years of working as an Artist-in-Residence. She has directed the NH Theatre Project Youth Repertory Company, a pre-professional training program for teens, in productions of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night as well as Aristophanes’ The Birds; Idiot’s Delight by Robert Sherwood; and Harvey by Mary Chase.

Along with her work in professional and youth theatre productions, Genevieve frequently directs community arts programs in her role as artistic director of New Hampshire Theatre Project. These have included multi-generation, multi-media projects such as Neighborhoods (for which she won the 2002 Spotlight Award for Community Arts) in Portsmouth, NH; The World Sits Down to Dinner in Rye, NH; and Aunt Chip & the Triple Creek Dam in Greenland, NH. These productions feature large casts (between 50-150) of both amateurs and professionals, ranging from pre-schoolers to senior citizens. Genevieve also adjudicates regularly for both the American Association of Community Theatres and the New Hampshire Educational Theatre Guild.

In her performing work, Genevieve combines music, theatre and movement with traditional storytelling techniques to weave tales of wonder, courage and humor for all ages. Her original one-woman performances of Resurrection and Gently Gone combine monologues, songs and poetry to take the audience on a powerful journey through the beauty and pain of the creative soul. Reviewer Todd Hunter describes her work: “Genevieve Aichele has taken the brave choice of baring her soul in performance and has achieved what many artists strive to do but only few truly accomplish: to find the truth. Her success is to the benefit of all who attend her performances.”