Highland County Arts Council Presents 2018-2019 Concert Series – Part 1

The full lineup for the Highland County Arts Council’s 2018-2019 Concert Series has been announced, and there is plenty of musical talent planned at The Highland Center to keep folks entertained.  AMR received the full rundown from Arts Council member, Clair Myers.

Dr. Myers says, “We’ve been working really hard to bring at least one performance a month to Highland County, and we’ve almost done that.  I’ve avoided January for obvious reasons up here, but the rest of the months from September through June are going to have really great performances available.  Obviously, there’s going to be a need for admissions fees for those things which are not free to help cover the cost, but the costs are really fairly small for what we’re able to do because of the grants that we’ve received from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which is a conduit for money from the National Endowment for the Arts and because of a grant from the Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge.  We’re very lucky to have all those in place for us, or we couldn’t do this.”

On Saturday, September 8, 2018, folks are invited to join in the fun of a Contra Dance with music and calling by The Rhythmajigs, featured the local talent of Patti Reum.  More musical acts will follow in the upcoming months.

“Beginning in October, we start with really outstanding performers, some of whom have been here before, but many are brand new, both to Highland County and, in some ways, to the state,” continues Dr. Myers.  “For Hands and Harvest, which is the October festival in Monterey, we’re having Linda and Robin Williams, who were here, I would think, almost fifteen years or more ago with the Arts Council.  They’re pretty well-known nationally and internationally, I guess you could say.  Locally, they did the Stonewall Country down at Lime Kiln, was something that they wrote.  They were on A Prarie Home Companion for a long period of time, as long as it lasted actually, and, more importantly, about that concert is that we have a sponsor who is covering much of the cost, so it is a free concert, although we gratefully welcome donations, in honor of Elizabeth and Mary Hille McCoy, and we’re hoping that will be an annual event, not with Linda and Robin Williams, but as an annual kinda memorial for the McCoy sisters.”

Dr. Myers says the trust that will sponsor this year’s free concert is the Charles Pickney Jones Charitable Trust.  Details are still being worked out, but the cost of the rental, and the performers beyond one of the earlier -received grants, are planned to be covered.  There are also plans to work with Big Fish Cider to provide subsidized or free cider for the evening.  That concert is planned for Sunday, October 14, 2018 at 3:00 p.m.  Dr. Myers concludes, “And then following that, we have the Richard Williams Trio with Wanda Taylor.  Some people remember a group called Wanda and the White Boys, and that’s really the group that’s coming, although they’ve changed their title a bit.  And then we end 2018, with a December concert by the Heifetz Institute touring artists.  These are people that have been at the Institute, which is about developing people’s ability to communicate with their audience beyond their music, so that they can move faster and farther as solo performers.  They pull some of those people back together twice a  year, and they do a tour throughout the area, and they’re coming to Highland County, so that finishes 2018.”

In Part 2 of this story, we’ll have the remaining schedule that begins in February of 2019.