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WCU’s annual heritage celebration set for Saturday
Music of a traditional tone will be echoing around the Western Carolina University campus on Mountain Heritage Weekend – Friday and Saturday, Sept. 26-27 – as the bluegrass band Balsam Range presents a performance at WCU’s Fine and Performing Arts Center and the university holds its 34th annual Mountain Heritage Day festival.
Balsam Range will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Friday in the arts center performance hall, and Mountain Heritage Day, WCU’s daylong festival of mountain culture, will include about 30 free music and dance performances on Saturday.
The five-member, Haywood County-based Balsam Range features two WCU graduates – Grammy Award-winning banjo player Marc Pruett and fiddler Buddy Melton – and bass player Tim Surrett, also a former WCU student. Along with mandolin player (and Tuckasegee native) Darren Nicholson and guitarist Caleb Smith, they perform a blend of contemporary and traditional bluegrass that has captivated bluegrass fans nationwide since the group’s formation in early 2007.
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Mountain Heritage Day’s Circle Tent gives visitors a chance to listen to traditional music and programs in a more intimate setting. This year’s tent lineup includes “The Civil War in Jackson County” at 10 a.m.; storytelling with Gary Carden at 11 a.m.; hands-on children’s activities from noon until 2 p.m.; a fiddle Circle, with moderator Wayne Seymour, Delbert Queen, Bob Buckingham and Amanda (Dills) Stewart at 2 p.m.; and a banjo circle, also moderated by Seymour, and featuring Josh Johnson and J.R. Queen, at 3 p.m. Mountain Heritage Day is this Saturday, Sept. 27, at Western Carolina University. For information, call 227-3193.
“We are really excited for the opportunity to play in the new Fine and Performing Arts Center at WCU,” Melton said. “The hall is acoustically fantastic.”
The Friday night concert is a fund-raiser for Mountain Heritage Day. Proceeds from the concert, after expenses, will be used to fund activities at upcoming editions of the festival.
General admission tickets are available for $10 each by calling the Fine and Performing Arts Center at 227-2479 (Visa or MasterCard) or by visiting the box office between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Tickets also may be purchased online at http://fapac.wcu.edu.
Mountain Heritage Day kicks off around 8 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27, with continuous mountain music and dance, a 130-booth arts and crafts midway, and 20 booths with traditional mountain food. Admission and parking at the festival are free.
Mountain Heritage Day typically attracts more than 25,000 visitors to WCU on the last Saturday of each September, but the event rarely gets crowded as activities are held on spacious athletic fields around the university’s Cordelia Camp Building and in the Mountain Heritage Center, WCU’s museum of Appalachian culture that’s located on the ground floor of Robinson Building.
The Mountain Heritage Center will once again sponsor area folk artists demonstrating skills such as blacksmithing, wood-carving and Cherokee pottery-making on the main festival grounds and at the museum. Free hayrides will be available to transport visitors between the main festival grounds and the Mountain Heritage Center.
Back at the main festival site, children will have an opportunity to learn about mountain culture in the Mountain Heritage Center’s Hands-On History Children’s Area, and all festival-goers will have a chance to experience a unique American musical tradition during two sessions of shape-note singing.
Also on the agenda are exhibitions of Cherokee Indian ball (also known as “stickball”) and black powder shooting with a flintlock rifle musket; a woodcutting contest featuring chainsaw and crosscut saw masters; and other just-for-fun competitions, including a 5K foot race, 1-mile fun run for children, antique auto show, costume contests for children and adults, and a beard and mustache contest. Also, winners from “A Gathering In,” the festival traditional foods competition, will be on display all day.
Returning to Mountain Heritage Day this year are the Warriors of AniKituhwa, a Cherokee dance group that is re-creating authentic Cherokee dances as described almost 250 years ago. The Warriors will present dances at 10:30 a.m. on the Norton Music Stage, and then lead an interpretive discussion about their dances at the Mountain Heritage Center’s Circle Tent at 11:30 a.m.
Mountain Heritage Day is held outside, rain or shine. Close parking is limited, but shuttles operate throughout the day to transport visitors from outlying parking areas to the festival grounds. Visitors coming onto campus should watch for designated shuttle pick-up locations. Special parking is available to those with physical disabilities.
Visitors are encouraged to bring lawn chairs to set up at the stages, and to also bring hats and plenty of sunscreen if a sunny day is in the forecast. Pets are not allowed on Mountain Heritage Day grounds, but service animals are welcome.
The sponsor for 2008 Mountain Heritage Weekend activities is Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Hotel, an enterprise of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
For more information about Mountain Heritage Day, call 227-3193 or visit mountainheritageday.com.
A schedule follows:
8 a.m. – Registration begins for Mountain Heritage 5K footrace and 1-mile fun run.
8:30 a.m. – Fun run begins; registration begins for woodcutting contest.
9 a.m. – 5K footrace begins.
9:30 a.m. – Woodcutting competition and antique auto show begin.
10 a.m. – Folk artists begin demonstrations; Mountain Heritage Center opens.
10:30 a.m. – Exhibition of black powder shooting.
11 a.m. – “Sacred Harp” shape-note sing and exhibition of Cherokee Indian ball begin.
12:15 p.m. – Presentation of Mountain Heritage Award and Eva Adcock Award, costume contest for adults and children, men’s beard and moustache contest, all at Norton Music Stage.
1 p.m. – Exhibition of Cherokee Indian ball begins.
1:30 p.m. – “Christian Harmony” shape-note sing begins.
2:15 p.m. – Exhibition of black powder shooting.
5 p.m. – Music stages and midway close.
– Folk art demonstrations will last from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and include: Bryan Bartell, wood-working; Annie Lee Bryson, corn shuck crafts; Cassie Dickson, flax spinning and weaving; Helen Gibson, wood-carving; Jerry King, instrument-making; Reese King, wood-working; Bonnie Lanning, rug-braiding; Earl Lanning, gunsmithing; John Henry Maney, Cherokee pottery; Johnnie Ruth Maney, Cherokee beadwork; Nancy Maney, Cherokee doll-making; Matthew Shirey, blacksmithing; and R.O. Wilson, crosscut saw sharpening.
– The line up for the “Traditional Music” stage includes: Gar Mosteller and Doyle Barker; the Queen Family; the Deitz Family; and young local talent winners.
– The Circle Tent schedule includes:
10 a.m. – “The Civil War in Jackson County,” presented by the Jackson County Historical Society and Webster Historical Society.
11 a.m. – Storytelling with Gary Carden.
Noon to 2 p.m. – Hands-On Children’s Heritage Activities.
2 p.m. – Fiddle Circle, with moderator Wayne Seymour, Delbert Queen, Bob Buckingham and Amanda (Dills) Stewart
– Local acts appearing on the Norton Stage include:
10 a.m. – Mountain Faith
11:35 a.m. – Cullowhee Valley Cloggers
11:45 a.m. – Fiddling Dills Sisters and the Cullowhee Valley Boys
1 p.m. – Balsam Range
1:30 p.m. – Whitewater Bluegrass Co.
4:15 p.m. – Pirates of the Tuckaseigee
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