DECEMBER 12

Sheryl Cormier is one of only a handful of female Cajun musicians. At age 6 she taught herself to play her dad’s accordion while he and her mother were out farming in Louisiana. Despite having won respect among genre connoisseurs while playing with Andrew Guilbeau and the Sunset Playboys, her father discouraged Sheryl’s new hobby—even while her mother became an accomplished drummer. But Cormier persisted, on a part-time basis, and even performed a song at her wedding when someone from the bandstand handed her a squeezebox. After her son graduated high school, Cormier finally turned her on-the-sly pursuit into a vocation. In the 1980s, she headed the first all-woman Cajun band and now leads the Cajun Sounds, which include her husband’s rough-voiced French and English vocals and her son’s steady backbeat. With a new album on the way and their recent self-titled third effort, Cormier continues to establish a role for women in Cajun music, mixing bouncy rural waltzes and upbeat two-steps with speedy fingerwork that’s as skilled as anyone’s. A beginners’ Cajun dance workshop starts at 8 p.m., with the show at 9 p.m. at Cherry Hill Park Clubhouse, 9800 Cherry Hill Rd., College Park. $10. (301) 309-0895. (Steve Kiviat)