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New Grant Awards Will Support Music Trails Exhibits, Programs, and Concert Venues

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The Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership (BRNHA) is pleased to announce the award of 9 grants totaling $62,760 to support traditional music projects across the North Carolina mountains and foothills.

“These grant awards will help our small towns and arts organizations showcase our music heritage and provide new experiences for visitors,” said Angie Chandler, Executive Director of BRNHA. “We have a rich musical story to tell, and you’ll find it alive and well in our small towns.”

The 9 grant awards include:

Clay County Communities Revitalization Association: $2,850 for a music heritage sculpture in downtown Hayesville.

Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center: $6,600 for an outdoor stage at the historic Cowee School to expand the capacity to present traditional music concerts.

Madison County Arts Council: $5,000 for a portable sound system to support traditional music events around the county.

One Dozen Who Care, Inc.: $5,000 to develop exhibits on the music traditions of African American communities in partnership with Western Carolina University.

Peacock Performing Arts Center: $2,225 for a new sound system to support music performances.

Surry Arts Council: $8,000 to expand and improve backstage space for musicians performing at the Historic Earle Theatre in downtown Mount Airy.

Western North Carolina Historical Association: $8,085 to support a music heritage exhibit and related educational programs at the Smith-McDowell House Museum.

Wilkes Heritage Museum: $10,000 to expand the museum’s Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame exhibit and event space.

Will & Deni McIntyre Foundation: $15,000 to support the national broadcast of David Holt’s State of Music series which showcases Western North Carolina’s bluegrass, old-time, and gospel traditions.

All of the grant awards will be matched with state or local funding and donated services.

Because the Wilkes Heritage Museum project involves renovations to the old Wilkes Courthouse, the grant is undergoing additional consultation by the State Historic Preservation Office.

The BRNHA Partnership is a nonprofit organization charged with preserving, interpreting, developing, and celebrating the rich and unique natural and cultural heritage in the 25-county Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. The Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina is a joint initiative of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership and the North Carolina Arts Council.

Grants Available for Music Projects

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New Grant Cycle Announced

The Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership is pleased to announce the availability of more grants!

Applications in the new grant cycle are due by October 3, 2016 and funding decisions will be announced by February 1, 2017.

Grants are available for the preservation, interpretation, development, and promotion of heritage resources in five thematic areas:

• Agricultural heritage
• Cherokee heritage
• Craft heritage
• Music heritage
• Natural heritage

Nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, and units of state and local governments are eligible to apply. The total pool of funding for the 2016 grant cycle is $180,000. The maximum grant award will be $16,000. Applicants must provide at least a one-to-one match from non-federal sources.

Further details, including guidelines and application forms, are available on the  Blue Ridge National Heritage Area website.

Grant Information Sessions

BRNHA staff will hold several grant information sessions around the BRNHA region in July 2016. Attendance is optional, but is recommended for those who have not attended information sessions for previous BRNHA grant cycles. Please review the grant guidelines on the BRNHA website and RSVP to Rob Bell (rob@blueridgeheritage.com or 828-298-5330, ext. 308) if you plan to attend a session.

The dates and locations for the meetings are:

Cherokee
Thursday, July 7, 2016
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Museum of the Cherokee Indian
589 Tsali Boulevard
Cherokee, NC

Marion
Thursday, July 14, 2016
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Marion Train Depot
58 Depot Street
Marion, NC

Wilkesboro
Monday, July 18, 2016
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Wilkes Heritage Museum
100 East Main Street
Wilkesboro, NC

Asheville

Tuesday, July 26, 2016
11:00 am – 12:00 noon
NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Western Office
176 Riceville Road
Asheville, NC

A Legacy of Regional Investment

Old-Time Music Heritage HallOver the past twelve years, the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership has awarded 133 grants totaling over $1.9 million to projects that preserve, interpret, and develop the heritage resources of the region. These awards have leveraged over $4 million in state, local, and private matches.

Grants awarded in previous cycles have supported exhibits, demonstration gardens, oral history collections, video documentaries, interpretive programs, teaching materials, artist training, visitor brochures, and the marketing of heritage destinations. The grant projects have provided engaging and authentic heritage experiences to hundreds of thousands of visitors and residents.

Sheila Kay Adams and Marc Pruett Receive NC Heritage Awards

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Sheila Kay Adams, a seventh-generation ballad singer, storyteller, and musician from Sodom Laurel in Madison County, and Marc Pruett, renowned banjo player, songwriter and co-founder of the popular bluegrass band, Balsam Range from Canton in Haywood County, will be honored with a North Carolina Heritage Award on May 25 in Raleigh.

The ceremony, which also includes performances by Sheila Kay Adams and Balsam Range, starts at 8 p.m. at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh.

The North Carolina Heritage Award is one of the Arts Council’s most popular public programs and celebrates the lifelong contributions of North Carolina artists to our state’s cultural heritage. This is the 27th anniversary of the program. Previous recipients of the award include Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Etta Baker and Bishop Faircloth Barnes, among others.

The western North Carolina recipients join six other North Carolinians who will receive the award including musician Maceo Parker from Lenoir County; Montagnard Dega weavers H Ju Nie and H Ngach Rahlan from Guilford County; and the Lewis Family, traditional boat builders from Carteret County.

Sheila Kay Adams

Sheila Kay Adams traces her balladry roots back seven generations to her Scots-Irish forebears who made the mountains of Madison County their home in the mid-1700s. The highly musical families of the county’s Sodom community — the Nortons, Chandlers, Wallins, Ramseys, and Rays — have made Sodom famous for its music, particularly for ballad singing.

Adams, who absorbed the songs of her great-aunt “Granny Dell,” Dellie Norton Chandler and Doug Wallin, both are previous Heritage Award recipients.

“As we get older, we return to that which is real. And what was real for me was a bunch of wonderful, fabulously talented family members that took the time with a youn’un that was her father’s active child and sat me down and taught me a whole world of stuff — stories and songs — and gave me a view of the world that I would have never had otherwise,” said Sheila Kay Adams in an interview with the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 2013 the National Endowment for the Arts awarded her a National Heritage Fellowship.

Marc Pruett

Renowned banjo player, songwriter and Haywood County native Marc Reagan Pruett makes a life for himself and his family that reflects a commitment to his mountain region, its music and its people.

He has a deep reverence for traditional mountain music. His mastery of the five string banjo is second to none and propelled him to appear on many nationally released albums and on a large volume of regional releases. A prolific songwriter, both solo and with numerous partners, has taken his music to the top of the bluegrass charts. Now performing with Balsam Range, a North Carolina bluegrass group of enormous range and even larger popularity, Marc Pruett’s devotion to the mountain culture of his home reaches a world-wide audience.

“To me the best part about Marc is his ability to make the other people in the band sound better,” said music icon Ricky Skaggs. “He’s always driving the rhythm and encouraging the other players. With a kind, gentle spirit he walks up to total strangers and sticks out his hand. He loves people, and they love him back.”

Marc requested—and received—his first banjo at age 11 after hearing Cleveland County native Earl Scruggs on the radio. He mastered his instrument’s five strings by watching and listening to local pickers at jam sessions, and honed his craft over years of practice and performances, playing his first professional gig at age 15. After college at Western Carolina University, Marc performed with Bill Monroe’s son James, then met and recorded with bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs.

General information about the N.C. Heritage Awards

Eight North Carolina artists will receive the North Carolina Heritage Award for their outstanding contributions to our state’s cultural heritage in an awards ceremony and concert scheduled Wednesday, May 25 in Raleigh.

The 2016 North Carolina Heritage Award recipients are Maceo Parker, internationally-recognized funk, jazz and rhythm and blues musician (Kinston, Lenoir County); Sheila Kay Adams, a seventh-generation ballad singer, storyteller, and musician (Sodom Laurel, Madison County); Montagnard Dega weavers H Jue Nie and H Ngach Rahlan, who brought their mastery of spinning, dying and weaving from the highlands of Vietnam (Greensboro, Guilford County); Houston, James and Jamie Lewis, fourth generation boat builders from the Harkers Island tradition (Harkers Island, Carteret County); and Marc Pruett, renowned banjo player.

More than 120 traditional artists have been honored in the last 26 years.

Details for the Ceremony & Performance

North Carolina Heritage Award Ceremony
Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts
Wednesday, May 25, 2016, 8 p.m.
Get Your Tickets Now!
(919) 664-8302 or www.pinecone.org 
General Public Ticket Price: $25
Group tickets of 10 or more $20 each

Note: If your organization purchases 10 or more tickets the N.C. Arts Council will donate a copy of the African American Music Trails of Eastern North Carolina OR Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina for a giveaway to your group.

May 17th Social Media Workshop Scheduled for Partners

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Blue Ridge Music Trails venues, event organizers, and musicians have one more opportunity to get hands-on training with social media at a special workshop sponsored by the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina.
 
The workshop will be held on Tuesday, May 17, 2016, at the RagApple Lassie Vineyards in Boonville, NC. The training is from 1-4 pm and will be presented by Matt Powell, Director of Communications and Branding, Destination by Design.
 
Cost is $20 and includes light refreshments and a copy of the new Social Media Songbook reference guide.

Click here for more information.

Don't miss this great opportunity! Bring your smart phones, tablets, and/or laptops, fully charged and ready to experiment with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

The workshop is presented by the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership with support from the North Carolina Arts Council. 

Golden Threads Mural Honors Shindig on the Green

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An interpretive art mural honoring the past, present, and future of Shindig on the Green will be unveiled at a ceremony at 6:00 pm on Thursday, April 21, 2016 at Pack’s Tavern, adjacent to Pack Square Park, in downtown Asheville. Several of the musicians who were inspiration for the mural will attend the unveiling and “step out of the mural” to perform. Plans for a Western North Carolina Mountain Heritage Mural Trail will also be announced. Shindig on the Green will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary this year.

Created by Doreyl Ammons Cain, mural artist, of Catch the Spirit of Appalachia, Inc., the “Golden Threads” mural project included interviews and research into the traditional music culture of Western North Carolina, ensuring local musicians’ stories were designed into the mural. Painted with archival mural paint on archival picture board using a five stage process, the interpretive mural will be sheer coated with a mural protectant that preserves the mural for hundreds of years outdoors while protecting the mural from graffiti. The mural will be installed on an outside wall of Packs Tavern, Asheville, NC, where it will be within yards of Shindig’s Bascom Lamar Lunsford Stage. A mural plaque will be placed describing Shindig on the Green and honoring donors to the project. An audio CD with local musicians’ Stories of Mountain Folk’ radio show interviews and an art print of the mural will be inside Pack's Tavern for visitors to purchase. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Folk Heritage Committee for on-going Shindig production.

For more information, contact:

Mary Evans, Pack’s Tavern, 828-712-5944, packstavernmarketing@gmail.com or

Doreyl Ammons Cain, Catch the Spirit of Appalachia, Inc., 828-293-2239, artist@doreylart.com

Roger Howell Documentary Selected for Longleaf Film Festival

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A documentary film profiling celebrated fiddler Roger Howell of Madison County, North Carolina was selected to screen at the North Carolina Museum of History’s Longleaf Film Festival, May 13th-14th,  2016. Titled A Mighty Fine Memory:  Stories and Tunes from the Fiddler of Banjo Branch, the half-hour documentary was produced by the Liston B. Ramsey Center for Regional Studies at Mars Hill University. The film will be shown at 4:00 on Saturday, May 14th.

Known for his skill as a musician and generosity as a teacher, Roger Howell has also dedicated much of his energy to documenting the music for posterity. He spent years recording the “Memory Collection,” a compilation of 532 fiddle tunes donated to Mars Hill University’s Southern Appalachian Archives. He was honored with a Brown-Hudson Folklore Award in 2015.

Watch the trailer on YouTube.

The film was supported by a grant from the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership.

Congratulations to filmmaker Rebecca Jones, to producer Hannah Furgiuele, and to Roger!

David Holt’s State of Music to Be Broadcast Nationally

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Beginning April 1st, PBS stations across the United States will start broadcasting David Holt’s State of Music, a one-hour program showcasing the music traditions of the North Carolina mountains and foothills. The program premiered first in North Carolina on UNC-TV in January, 2015.

Filmed on location in Western North Carolina, the program is hosted by music ambassador David Holt, who introduces viewers to modern masters of traditional music in the Southern mountains and remembers the legends who taught him. Featured artists include guitarist Bryan Sutton, musician and ballad singer Josh Goforth, Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, old-time fiddler Bruce Molsky, African American gospel torch-bearers Wilbur Tharpe and Lena Mae Perry (who perform as the Branchettes), and Haywood County bluegrass supergroup Balsam Range.

You’ll find an updated broadcast schedule here.

Bluegrass Unlimited has published a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film as the cover story of its April 2016 edition.

The Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership provided financial support for the project.

Social Media Workshops Offered to Music Trails Partners

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Learn how to use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to reach more fans of traditional music and help them discover your music offerings. We invite Blue Ridge Music Trails venues, event organizers, and musicians to a special hands-on training opportunity focused on the use and power of social media.

The social media workshop will be offered at four locations in Western North Carolina:

  • Thursday, March 10, 1 to 4 pm – Cherokee
  • Wednesday, March 16, 10 am to 1 pm – Valdese
  • Saturday, April 16, 11 am to 2 pm – Asheville
  • Tuesday, May 17, 1 to 4 pm — Boonville

The workshop cost is $20. Further details and registration information can be found here.

The workshops are offered by the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership with support from the North Carolina Arts Council. 

Roger Howell Honored with 2015 Brown-Hudson Folklore Award

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The North Carolina Folklore Society announced that master fiddler Roger Howell of Madison County, North Carolina is a 2015 recipient of the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award for his work in preserving and showcasing regional music traditions. Known for his skill as a musician and generosity as a teacher, Howell has also dedicated much of his energy to documenting the music for posterity. He spent years recording the “Memory Collection,” a compilation of 532 fiddle tunes donated to Mars Hill University’s Southern Appalachian Archives.

Roger Howell will perform at the Bascom Lamar Lunsford “Minstrel of Appalachia” Festival on October 3rd on the campus of Mars Hill University. A documentary film about him will premiere at the festival.

Howell will receive the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award at a ceremony on October 10th from 2:30 – 5:00 at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee.

Congratulations to Roger!

Read the full North Carolina Folklore Society announcement.

Sheila Kay Adams and Marc Pruett to Receive the North Carolina Heritage Award

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Governor Pat McCrory announced today that eight North Carolina artists will receive the North Carolina Heritage Award for their outstanding contributions to our state’s cultural heritage. Among them are two musicians from the North Carolina mountains: Sheila Kay Adams, a seventh-generation ballad singer, storyteller, and musician (Sodom Laurel, Madison County) and Marc Pruett, renowned banjo player, songwriter and part of the renowned bluegrass band, Balsam Range (Canton, Haywood County).

Congratulations to Sheila and Marc!

Read the full announcement here.

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