WCA bluegrass

March 5, 2014
551

Bluegrass music returns to Wayne Center for the Arts, 237 S. Walnut Street in Wooster, on Friday, March 21 at 7:00 p.m., when Rachel Burge and Blue Dawning and Northwest Territory take the stage at the Wayne Centers auditorium. Northwest Territory has been performing its own unique style of music since its first performance back in 1989. That style is inclusive of not only bluegrass music but also of country, folk, and gospel. Original material also abounds in the bands repertoire. This group of musicians has a harmony blend that is sure to please with a variety of duets, trios and lead vocals. They have performed at venues from Canada to Florida and from New York to Illinois. Members of the band are Mike Gorrell, Kerri Lehman, Randall Boring, and Mary Kettering. Gorrell is the bands founding member and is also its manager, emcee, vocalist and accomplished guitarist and mandolin player. He was a 10 year member of the Whetstone Run Bluegrass Band and is also a successful country and bluegrass DJ. Kerri Lehman is a veteran of several bluegrass bands including Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys, Faces Made for Radio, and The Bluegrass Mountaineers. Her tremendous vocal range and powerful singing make her a huge asset to the band as a lead vocalist and harmony singer. Her acoustic bass playing is rock solid in timing and taste. Boring plays banjo and sings lead and harmony vocals. His hard drive and precise timing has kept him busy throughout the years with some of the finest groups in the industry, such as Whetstone Run, Bob Paisly and the Southern Grass, Lower Forty Grass and Dakota. His playing includes a variety of influences from the traditional sound of Earl Scruggs and Don Reno to the more modern style of Bobby Thompson, Alan Munde and Tony Trischka. Mary Kettering is an accomplished violinist with both the Ashland and Lima Symphonies. She has worked previously playing bluegrass fiddle with Faces Made for Radio and the Kentucky Border bluegrass bands. Rachel Burge and Blue Dawning is comprised of five musicians with over 70 years of combined professional bluegrass experience. Rachel Burge picked up the fiddle around the age of fifteen but then discovered the mandolin. She was a member of the popular group No One You Know, which she performed with for 4 years until they disbanded in 2012. Rachel has been in a variety of bands with many different varieties of bluegrass music, but through being in No One You Know, she has been able to open up her songwriting talent. Lance Gainer was introduced to music early in life. At the age of 5, he began playing the mandolin. It wasnt until college, though, that Lance picked up the guitar. He was a founding member of his first band License to Drive and recorded two CDs with this group. Since then he has been a member of groups Buck & Company and No One You Know. Rick Westerman started his musical career in his school band and with his family in the Tri-County Travelers playing square dances. He honed his skills by playing shows with the likes of Ralph Stanley, Melvin Goins, Larry Sparks, the Goins Brothers, Rarely Herd, and spending 20 years as bass player/tenor singer with the Hart Brothers, and most recently with Buck and Company. Radford Vance started playing banjo when he was 10. By age 15 he was traveling with Carl Story and Jim Horn playing bluegrass gospel. Over the years he has played with various other artists, including Lawrence Lane and the Kentucky Grass, Northwest Territory, James Monroe, the legendary Bill Monroe. Both he and his wife, Michele, were members of Northwest Territory. Michele Birkby-Vance was born into a family of fiddle players and learned to play the fiddle from her father at the early age of 10. She started playing Bluegrass music while living in Ohio, where she met her husband, Radford Vance. In the early 1990's she toured the country playing bluegrass fiddle with The New Coon Creek Girls. She was included to play fiddle on the very first Daughters of Bluegrass recording in 2004. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the concert begins at 7 p.m. All tickets are $12 ($10 for Wayne Center members). For more information about the concert or about Wayne Center for the Arts, check out our website at www.wayneartscenter.org or call 330-264-ARTS (2787).

WCA bluegrass

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