A time for reflection, connection, and celebration, "A Swannanoa Solstice" annual holiday concert is presented Sunday, December 22, at 2 pm and 7 pm, at Diana Wortham Theatre.
Award-winning recording artists Al Petteway, Amy White, and Robin Bullock
lead the annual holiday concert A
Swannanoa Solstice, Sunday, December 22 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at Diana
Wortham Theatre at Pack Place in downtown Asheville, with festivities beginning
in the lobby prior to the performances with complimentary Wassail. In this
annual winter holiday celebration, world-renowned musicians Petteway and White
along with Bullock and a host of special guests share holiday songs old and
new, religious and secular, joyful and poignant, in a warm and intimate winter
concert.
Presented
in partnership with The Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson College, A
Swannanoa Solstice again offers two performances in order to meet the audience
demand for this popular winter gathering and concert.
This year’s special guests include:
- Sheila Kay Adams, National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship winner, world-renowned Appalachian storyteller, traditional ballad singer, banjo player and author;
- The Twisty Cuffs, local Cape Breton-style stepdancers;
- Piperjones and his Merry Band, Highland bagpipers featuring piper E.J. Jones;
- Host and emcee Doug Orr, president emeritus of Warren Wilson College and founder of A Swannanoa Solstice
A Swannanoa Solstice
showcases all manner of seasonal sounds and festivities, with well-mastered
Celtic and Appalachian songs and music on guitar, mandolin, fiddle, piano,
Celtic harp, Irish bouzouki, vocals and world percussion. Through music and
storytelling and poetry, the featured artists explore shared winter traditions
from the area, the country, and from around the world. The melodies played by
Petteway, a virtuosic acoustic guitarist, draw from a broad variety of cultural
influences from Middle East tonalities to Scottish jigs. White, on piano,
mandolin, guitar, Celtic harp and percussion, draws on her classical background
to create beautiful and compelling original compositions and arrangements of
traditional favorites. Bullock, a multi-instrumentalist who plays the guitar,
mandolin and bouzouki is hailed as a master musician whose style skillfully
embraces Celtic and Classical music.
More about the artists:
Grammy winner Al Petteway and his wife and musical partner Amy White perform an exciting blend of original, traditional,
contemporary Celtic- and Appalachian-influenced music. Their repertoire offers extensive
instrumental work featuring acoustic guitars, mandolins, Celtic harp, piano and
world percussion as well as a fine touch of vocals. They have been Artists in
Residence at Warren Wilson College and The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Their
award-winning signature sound is heard often on public radio programs and has
been used in soundtracks for independent films, most notably Ken Burns’ Emmy-winning
PBS documentary, The National Parks-America’s Best Idea. While living in the Washington, D.C. area, Al & Amy
won a grand total of 50 Wammies from the Washington Area Music Association in
the Folk, Celtic and New Age categories. They received a coveted Indie Award
for their CD Gratitude (2001) and Al won a
Grammy for his solo fingerstyle guitar contribution to the pop instrumental
compilation, Pink Guitar (2004). The readers
of Acoustic
Guitar magazine voted him one of the top fifty guitarists
of all time. Al is the coordinator of Guitar Week for the world famous
Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson College, and was given the “Master Music
Maker” award for his contributions to the program in 2013. Amy’s 2012 release, Home Sweet Home, was in the top ten
on the national folk/roots charts and held the number one spot in North
Carolina for more than a month in 2012. Al’s most resent release, It’s Only The Blues, was selected by the
editors of Acoustic Guitar Magazine as one of the top
ten essential albums of 2012. Al and Amy are both stock photographers with
National Geographic Creative, and their photographs are represented in The
National Geographic Society’s Image Collection, where Al worked as an image
editor for 18 years. These photos are translated onstage during A Swannanoa
Solstice in photographic backdrops of the Southern Appalachians in winter
repose. Al and Amy make their home on top of the Elk
Mountains range in nearby Weaverville, NC.
Hailed as a "Celtic guitar god"
by the Baltimore City Paper, guitarist/mandolinist/citternist
Robin Bullock is a winner of
Editor's Pick and Player's Choice Awards from Acoustic Guitar
Magazine, the Association for Independent Music's
prestigious INDIE Award (with the world-folk trio Helicon), multiple Washington
Area Music Association WAMMIE Awards, a Governor's Award from the Maryland
State Arts Council, and a bronze medal at the National Mandolin Championship in
Winfield, Kansas. His twelve solo and collaborative recordings include two
holiday CDs, A Guitar for Christmas and Christmas
Eve is Here, and his most recent, Majesty
and Magic: Music of Bach, Dowland and Carolan for Solo Guitar. In addition to his solo work, Robin also tours
internationally as sideman with Grammy-winning folk legend Tom Paxton,
including Tom's 2010 and 2012 "Together at Last" tours with Janis
Ian. A native of Washington, D.C. and a longtime resident of France, Robin now
makes his home in Black Mountain, NC.
A Swannanoa Solstice is
presented annually in partnership with The Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson
College, and is made possible by Performance Sponsors Bill & Marilyn
Hubbard, Henry LaBrun, Marrion & Rockwell Ward, and Arby’s, with additional
support from Media Sponsors The Laurel of Asheville and WCQS 88.1 FM.
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