Music Harvest slated

By WAYNE QUESENBERRY/Staff

There is still one major harvest of the year and it’s coming soon to Rural Retreat. The 13th annual Music Harvest is set for Saturday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. in the newly refurbished Rural Retreat High School auditorium.
Sponsored by the MacDowell Music Club, the Music Harvest is a major fundraiser for the club. Proceeds from ticket sales go toward the club’s support of music in the local schools.
Tickets are $5 per person with children ages 12 and younger admitted free. They are available from members of the Rural Retreat High School Band and chorus.
“We’ve put together another great lineup for the Music Harvest,” noted Ellen Schaack, chairman of the Music Harvest and president of the MacDowell Music Club. “I think everyone is really going to enjoy the show.”
Adam McPeak and Mountain Thunder is among the featured performers. The group of musicians, ranging in age 11 to 15, won honors at the 2009 Galax Old Fiddlers Convention.
McPeak, a Wythe County teenager, has been playing mandolin since he was three years old and has performed with his dad’s famous bluegrass band, the McPeak Brothers. He and his young friends formed Mountain Thunder last November.
Gerald Anderson and Friends from Troutdale will perform at next Saturday’s event. Anderson has been making instruments and performing music for 30-plus years.
He began working in the shop legendary guitar maker, Wayne Henderson of Rugby, in the late 1970s. Anderson has made over 200 instruments to date. He has won over 200 competitions, the most prestigious being the guitar championship at the 2003 Galax Fiddler’s Convention.
Joining Anderson will be Jimmy Edmonds, a well-known fiddler from Galax. Butch Barker of Lansing, N.C., will play bass for the group and Paul Trianosky from Mountain City, Tenn., will play mandolin.
Also featured at the Music Harvest will be the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers, a southern Appalachian traditional mountain music string band. The band has performed at such venues as the American Folklife Festival at the Smithsonian, Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville and other music conventions throughout the eastern United States.
Craig Allison of Wytheville will once again serve as master of ceremonies for the Music Harvest.
A drawing will be held for a student guitar.
Wayne Quesenberry can be reached at 228-6611 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).