Music and dance have been a vital part of the Folk School since its founding in 1925. As we celebrate our 100th year, Centennial Sounds honors this legacy by spotlighting the cultural richness of Appalachian music and the many voices that shape it. This special performance series will feature five headliners whose work expands and redefines the story of Appalachian music. Through these concerts, we aim to create new opportunities for our community in Western North Carolina to experience the full spectrum of Appalachian sound.
Admission is $25 for adults and $5 for youth. *
Buy tickets online at folkschool.org/sounds
Doors 6 p.m.
Music 7 p.m.
in the Festival Barn
Tray Wellington Band
Banjo player Tray Wellington’s approach to the quintessential American instrument is all about looking forward. An International Bluegrass Music Association Award winner, Wellington is critically acclaimed not only for his technical prowess, but also for leveraging his unique point of view to craft a one-of-a-kind voice on the instrument. It’s a feat that’s all too rare in these roots genres that seem to value emulation and regurgitation over all else. Instead, Wellington has time and time again reasserted that his playing style, and all of the many varied and disparate parts that combine within it, is wholly his own.
Cherokee Language Repertory Choir
Opening this special concert is the Cherokee Language Repertory Choir, a group dedicated to preserving and celebrating the Cherokee language through song and performance. This choir uses the Christian Harmony shaped note tradition, but instead of singing it traditionally, in English, they sing in Cherokee. This effort revives a documented tradition of shaped note singing in the Cherokee community while helping to keep the Cherokee language a part of cultural practice in Western North Carolina.