YADKINVILLE, N.C. — The Yadkin Arts Council and Blue Ridge Music Center are partnering to present the 8th Annual Sounds of the Mountains Concert Series, featuring three weekends of live music in January from North Carolina and beyond. The concerts will be on three consecutive Saturdays in January – the 13th, 20th and 27th at the Willingham Theater, the centerpiece of the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center.
This year’s artists include award-winning bluegrass fiddler Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper and folk and roots music performers from the vibrant contemporary Americana music scene that has developed in the Piedmont Triad Region of North Carolina: Maia Kamil, The Queen Bees, His & Hers, and Molly McGinn & the Woodshed Experience. The performances will be held the last three Saturday evenings in January in the Willingham Theater at Yadkin Cultural Arts Center in Yadkinville.
Sounds of the Mountains is part of the Blue Ridge Music Center’s On the Road series of concerts and events hosted in partnership with regional arts and cultural organizations while the venue is closed for winter and spring. These shows bring the living musical and cultural traditions of the Blue Ridge Mountains off the hilltops and into other communities in North Carolina and Virginia.
2024 Sounds of the Mountains Schedule
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper – Saturday, January 13 @ 7:30pm / $35
Michael Cleveland is the most awarded International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Fiddle Player of the Year, with 12 wins to his name. He is a six-time winner of the IBMA Instrumental Performance of the Year. His band, Flamekeeper, has won Instrumental Group of the Year seven times. Cleveland was inducted into the National Fiddler Hall of Fame in 2018 and received the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship in 2022.
Maia Kamil with special guest The Queen Bees – Saturday, January 20 @ 7:30pm / $20
Singer-songwriter Maia Kamil has spent years refining a musical style that weaves eclectic influences, vocal dexterity, and complex lyrics to create tiny worlds in which the listener can get lost. The North Carolina transplant is a magnificent vocalist whose neo-soul, folk and blues has been compared to Norah Jones. She has worked closely with critically acclaimed jazz-rock fusion guitarist Charlie Hunter.
Opening the show will be The Queen Bees, a musical collaboration among three musicians from Greensboro, N.C.: award-winning musician and journalist, Molly McGinn; renowned electronic music producer and songwriter, Quilla; and esteemed musician and creative producer Kate Musselwhite Tobey. The group’s uplifting blend of traditional acoustic instruments, modern electronic loops and folk style story songs made their performance at the recent 2023 NC Folk Festival a highlight of the event.
His & Hers with special guests Molly McGinn & The Woodshed Experience – Saturday, January 27 @ 7:30pm / $20
His & Hers is an Americana folk band from Mocksville, N.C., fronted by husband and wife Caleb and Sara Davis. They’ve performed at MerleFest, Carolina in the Fall, and the Blue Ridge Music Center, and shared the stage with Scythian, The Steeldrivers, Zoe and Cloyd, and many others.
Opening the concert will be Molly McGinn and the Woodshed Experience featuring sacred steel guitarist DaShawn Hickman, songwriter and guitarist Dave Willis, bassist Jared Church, and drummer Nate Turner. Willis, Church, and Turner are all members of the popular Roots Rock band Possum Jenkins.
Tickets & Additional Information
What & When: “Sounds of the Mountains Series” in partnership with the Blue Ridge Music Center:
- Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, January 13 @ 7:30pm / $35
- Maia Kamil with special guest The Queen Bees, January 20 @ 7:30pm / $20
- His & Hers with special guests Molly McGinn & The Woodshed Experience, January 27 @ 7:30pm / $20
Tickets for these shows can be purchased at www.yadkinarts.org or at the Box Office from 10am-4pm, Monday-Friday.
Where: Willingham Theater (located in the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center) 226 E. Main St., Yadkinville.
About the Yadkin Arts Council
The Yadkin Arts Council, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, has a mission to transform the lives in our community through the arts by offering opportunities to encounter, create. We believe art is transformational. Arts open minds, frees imagination, and helps people see the world from different perspectives.
About the Blue Ridge Music Center
The Blue Ridge Music Center, located at milepost 213 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, near Galax, Va., celebrates the music and musicians of the mountains. The Music Center is a national park facility, a major attraction along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and a venue partner of The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail and Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Parkway/National Park Service maintains and operates the facility, and staffs the Music Center Visitor/Interpretive Center. The programs are managed, coordinated, promoted, and produced by the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, a nonprofit partner organization. For more information, visit BlueRidgeMusicCenter.org.
About the Willingham Theater
Opened in December 2012, the Willingham Theater, the centerpiece of the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center, is an architecturally beautiful and wonderfully intimate 193-seat performing arts theater.
This Project was supported by the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources.
Courtesy Submission
The Appalachian Chronicle 