Mountain Heart will be in Harrisonburg for an evening of cutting-edge bluegrass/acoustic music at Court Square Theater on Thursday, May 14 at 7:30 p.m. Advance tickets may be purchased for $19, $17 for students and seniors, and will be $3 more at the door.
Since the group’s creation in 1999, Mountain Heart has been leading the charge in taking acoustic music to the masses. The band deftly combines elements of rock, jamband, country, blues, jazz, and bluegrass into a high-energy sound that is at once fresh, accessible, and unmistakable. Their musical virtuosity and unmatched energy have helped them forge a highly unique sound and stage show that appeals to a wide variety of musical tastes.
Vocalist Josh Shilling, banjo player Barry Abernathy, bassist Jason Moore, and mandolin player Aaron Ramsey join original member Jim Van Cleve, who plays the fiddle. After a sixteen-month hiatus, Clay Jones has rejoined the band on guitar to round out the very talented and versatile sextet. Mountain Heart and its individual members have received multiple nominations/wins for Grammys, as well as awards from the Country Music Awards, and the International Bluegrass Music Association. They have appeared on the Grand Ole Opry and have shared the stage with acts ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd, George Jones, and Merle Haggard to Alison Krauss, the Yonder Mountain String Band, and Tony Rice.
Court Square Theater then welcomes Grammy-winning folksinger John McCutcheon for a performance on Friday, May 15.
The duo of Jeni & Billy open the show at 8 p.m. Advance tickets are $19, $17 for students and seniors. Tickets will cost $3 more at the door. The media sponsor for this concert is WMRA/WEMC.
With thirty-one recordings and six Grammy nominations to his credit, John McCutcheon’s songs sing of the nation’s heritage—his words channel the country’s conscience into streams of poetry and melody. He writes about subjects small and great, issues equally eternal and enduring.
By the time he released his first recording in 1974, John McCutcheon was a young man who had already drunk deep from America’s well. Born in Wisconsin, he enrolled at St. John’s University in
Minnesota and almost immediately felt the call to seek a broader curriculum beyond the classroom walls. He left school for a three-month independent study to find banjo players, and that project is still underway with no end in sight! McCutcheon continues to draw from our history while replenishing that well with reflections on the concerns of our time
For all that he has achieved on the page and in the studio, John McCutcheon is above all else a performer. From his childhood strums on a mail-order guitar, he has attained a matchless command of the hammered dulcimer and an exceptional ability on numerous other instruments, including the banjo. The late Johnny Cash once described McCutcheon as “the most impressive instrumentalist I’ve ever heard.”
Sing Out! magazine cited him as “the perfect example of the modern folk musician.”
Court Square Theater is a non-profit venue for the arts, operated by the Arts Council of the Valley, and is located at 61 Graham St. in Downtown Harrisonburg. Advance tickets can be purchased through the Box Office at the Smith House, 311 S. Main St. in Harrisonburg; by phone at 540.433.9189; or online at www.courtsquaretheater.com.
– News Release
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