Ballard is the place for top-notch folk music this coming week as Metamora (formerly known as Dalglish, Larsen and Sutherland) performs at the Backstage and banjo-picker Cathy Fink plays the New Melody.

Metamora, at the Backstage, 2203 N.W. Market St., Monday at 8:30 p.m., has changed its name to signal the completion of a musical shift from traditional folk and Irish music to finely filigreed, new-age chamber music.  That development was presaged last year when Malcolm Dalglish recorded a crystalline, solo hammer-dulcimer album, “Jogging the Memory” for the new-age label Windham Hill, to be released in April.

Malcolm Dalglish and Grey Larsen first recorded together in 1977.  Their album, “Banish Misfortune,” became an instant classic in folk circles, where listeners were beginning to demand innovative, chamber-orientated arrangements rather than faithful recreations of traditional music.  With the addition of Pete Sutherland in 1982, the group has played clubs and festivals all over North America and been featured on National Public Radio’s “Prairie Home Companion” and “All things Considered.”

Metamora’s finely finished musicianship on a panoply of instruments – fiddle, hammer dulcimer, piano, guitar, concertina, flutes – plus a knack for arranging has made it a leading group in New Acoustic Music.  At times, the fresh-faced threesome radiates more wistful sweetness and light than is credible, but in general, Metamora’s palette of dance-hall tunes, reels, ballads, and even a chorale, makes a fetching picture indeed.

No such arty impressionism haunts the old-time music of champion banjo-picker Cathy Fink, out from Washignton, D.C. for a solo performance at the New Melody Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., tomorrow at 9 p.m.