Arts On Main is a free and open to the public summer concert series sponsored by the Allen County-Scottsville Arts Council, who, for over 30 years now, has served as an all-volunteer non-profit organization dedicated to broadening public awareness and enjoyment of the performing arts, namely live music and theater, via community interaction and involvement.
For 21 now, the Arts On Main stage has hosted a wide variety of world class talents, including performing artists from afar, from within the region, and some from within our community’s very back yard – concerts by such performers as the 113th Fort Knox Army Band, Michael Gough, Tommy Womack, Red River Fiddlers, Darrell Scott, Annie Sellick Jazz Trio, Curtis Burch, Ned Van Go, Farewell Drifters, Scotty Anderson, John Edmonds, Chris Carmichael, Ching-Yi Lin with the Symphony @ WKU, Johnny Crawford, Eddie Pennington, Alison Brown, Mike Keneally, Will Kimbrough, The Reneaus, Harpeth Rising, Emi Sunshine, The Harp Twins, Reeves Gabrels, Craig Duncan, and Howard Levy, to name but a select few.
The 2018 season continues in this tradition with its Saturday, June 16, premier event with a live concert performance by Chicago jazz-prog-rockers, MARBIN. Formed in Israel in 2007 by saxophonist and former infantry sergeant, Danny Markovitch and Berklee College of Music graduate guitarist Dani Rabin, Marbin solidified its mission of recording and touring with the help of “jazz athletes” from the Pat Matheny Group and touring with the likes of Jeff Berlin and Alan Holdsworth. Marbin regularly plays in clubs all over the US and in jam and jazz festivals all over the world. For more info, please visit www.marbinmusic.com.
The free concert performances continue throughout the summer with appearances by such world class talents as ANNIE SELLICK and PAT BERGESON on Saturday, June 23. Annie Sellick is a renowned chanteuse with numerous touring/recording credits and a mainstay of the world’s major jazz venues, working with such notable artists as Beegie Adair, Joey DeFrancesco, Mark O’Connor, Tommy Emmanuel, and Bela Fleck to name but a few. She has enjoyed sold out performances backed by the Nashville Symphony and regularly performs with the highly acclaimed Nashville Jazz Orchestra. Pat Bergeson, Annie’s husband, is a master touring/session guitarist and Seydel-endorsed harmonicist. This veteran of the Grand Old Opry is a Mel Bay published author and was imported from New York to Nashville by none other than Mr. Guitar himself, Chet Atkins, to record with and perform in one of his late bands. Mr. Bergeson’s touring and recording credits also include Tommy Emmanuel, Sixpence None The Richer, Trace Adkins, Randy Travis, Emmylou Harris, Michael McDonald, Jo Dee Messina, Kenny Rogers, Asleep At The Wheel, Jill Sobule, Suzy Bogguss, and Alison Krauss. To learn more about this incredible duo please visit www.anniesellick.com and www.patbergeson.com.
On Saturday, July 7, we welcome to the Arts On Main stage the soulful voice and piano stylings of multi-award-winning gospel luminary, JOHN EDMONDS. John Edmonds began his professional musical career at the age of 15 when the group with which he sang and played piano, the Gospel Ambassadors, was asked to do a live weekly television show. The show aired for over a year and a half in Edmonds’ hometown of Bowling Green, Ky., over WLTV Television which later became WBKO Television. In 1964, he formed his own group, John Edmonds and the Angelic Specials, and began touring throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. Eventually, the group branched out even farther touring churches all over the U.S.A. By 1970, when the singers had relocated in Los Angeles, Calif., they had expanded their venues to include schools, fairs, festivals, and even some nightclubs. That same year, they signed with USO Overseas Tours/Hollywood and took their gospel repetoire into all of North America, Europe, Northern Africa, Asia, and Australia. During the Vietnam War, Edmonds and his singers traveled to that country three times entertaining military troops stationed there. Please visit www.johnedmondsgospel.com.
Another showcase of Allen County Performing Arts, LOCAL TALENT NIGHT, is on Saturday July 21. RAY CARDWELL & TENNESSEE MOON featuring Grammy Award-winning CURTIS “Doctor Dobro” BURCH will take to the Arts On Main stage on Saturday, August 4. A prolific songwriter, Cardwell’s powerful, four-octave voice is in large part what has caught the ears of some of Nashville’s most respected bluegrass musicians, several of whom shared their substantial musical expertise in studio sessions in Nashville in late 2015. “One of the most interesting things about Ray is his range,” said Pat Flynn, the highly respected guitar stylist, top-flight studio musician, songwriter and member of New Grass Revival now sitting in the producer chair at Ray’s sessions. “He has a very diverse musical background. We have a bluegrass foundation, but we’re doing everything from blues and gospel a cappella to straight-up bluegrass. I like the fact that Ray is able to embrace a lot of different styles…and pull them all off. His vocals are very distinctive, as well as his bass playing; that sets the stage for us to do a lot of things acoustically with modern bluegrass as a base.”. To learn more about Ray Cardwell and his immensely talented associates, please visit www.raycardwell.com.
The 2018 Arts On Main season will wrap on Saturday, August 18, with season finale performance by France’s GUILHEM DESQ. Nicknamed the “Hendrix of Hurdy-Gurdy” along with having millions of views on his YouTube videos, Guilhem Desq breathes new life and innovation into this old-world instrument. His sound is unmistakable as he electrifies this originally acoustic instrument and plays a wide variety of genres on it – anything from traditional European folk to Middle-Eastern, contemporary rock, hip-hop and electro. After a year touring worldwide with more than 60 shows (India, USA, New Zealand, Israel, Bulgaria, Italy, France), Guilhem Desq comes back to release his first solo album “Visions,” a “100% hurdy gurdy” album, a whole project beyond music, from building his instrument to directing and animating his latest music video “Le château magique.” To learn more about this master musician/artist/craftsman, please visit www.guilhemdesq.com.
The concerts are held on Saturdays from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Arts On Main pavilion located at 201 East Main St. in historic downtown Scottsville (with an adjacent rain locale at The Allen County Cooperative Extension Agency at 200 East Main St.) Bench seating is limited, so be sure to bring enough blankets and lawn chairs for the entire family. For further information, please visit www.acsarts.org.
