Some nights at the Pocahontas County Opera House feel less like a concert and more like a gathering — the kind where the room settles into a shared pulse and the music sounds like it belongs to the people listening as much as the people playing. That’s the spirit behind the Dakota Karper Collective, a rotating ensemble of Appalachian-rooted musicians led by fiddler and vocalist Dakota Karper.
At 7 p.m. Saturday, April 25, 2026, the Opera House will host the Dakota Karper Collective in Marlinton. The group draws from trusted collaborations across the region, allowing the lineup to shift from show to show while staying anchored in the same core purpose: fresh arrangements of traditional tunes, original songs and community-centered folk music built for story, movement and connection. The result is a set that can move easily from deep-listening ballads to danceable grooves, with the fiddle tradition serving as both guide and engine.
Karper was raised in rural West Virginia and has built her career around preserving and sharing the old-time music of the Appalachian Mountains. Immersed early in fiddle tunes and community music-making, she studied with master fiddler Joe Herrmann and continued shaping her craft through programs at the Augusta Heritage Center and Shenandoah Arts Academy. Her work treats tradition as a living practice — respectful of source material, but unafraid to write new songs alongside old melodies, letting the music keep growing where it was planted.
In addition to performing everywhere from house concerts to regional festivals, Karper is an educator known for creating spaces where people can learn the music without having to “already belong.” In 2019, she founded The Cat and The Fiddle, a folk music school designed as a welcoming, intergenerational place to study Appalachian music. She also teaches at traditional music camps including Augusta Heritage Center and Common Ground on the Hill, and has performed with bands such as Short Mountain String Band, Hay Fever and Vandalia. Karper has released five albums, documenting a body of work that spans traditional repertoire and original material tied closely to Appalachian life and landscape.
Her commitment extends beyond the stage. In 2023, Karper became executive director of the Cacapon Music & Dance Foundation, where she has expanded youth music scholarships, community events and folklife programming across the region. It’s the same throughline that runs through the Collective itself: making sure the music remains accessible, active and shared — something people do together, not something preserved behind glass.
Tickets for the April 25 performance are available for a $10 donation, with free admission for those 17 and under. Tickets can be obtained through the Opera House website, at the 4th Avenue Gallery in Marlinton or at the venue on the day of the performance, as space allows. For more information, visit pocahontasoperahouse.org.
The Opera House Performance Series is supported by grants from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History and the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, with additional support from Pocahontas County Dramas, Fairs and Festivals and the Pocahontas County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
