If one tries hard enough, the mournful sounds of a fiddle tune can almost be heard wafting through the breeze in anticipation of the Mount Airy Bluegrass and Old-Time Fiddlers Convention.
The event, now tuning up for its 52nd year, is scheduled to begin next Friday and run through Saturday, June 8, at Veterans Memorial Park on West Lebanon Street.
However, traditional music fans are expected to begin arriving Sunday for the convention, including camping out on the park grounds for nearly a week of camaraderie and informal performances leading to the official start of competition Friday at 7 p.m.
The convention is scheduled to resume the next day at 9:30 a.m.
Popular band competitions will be featured both days of the convention, starting at 7 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday from the park stage.
Other competition categories for single instruments and performers will include bluegrass and old-time banjos and fiddles, folk singing, guitar, mandolin, dobro, bass fiddle, dulcimer, autoharp and dance.
Both adult and youth (ages 15 and under) segments are included among the various divisions.
Park President Doug Joyner, who has been involved with the convention for 14 years, said healthy attendance greeted the event in 2023 and organizers are hoping for more this year.
“It was down just a little — not much,” Joyner said of last year’s turnout compared to previous conventions, as the convention gradually has returned to pre-pandemic levels. The event was cancelled in 2020 because of COVID-19.
From near and far
Joyner and his wife Judy, who also helps organize the fiddlers convention, say that in addition to local music fans from North Carolina and Virginia, the family friendly event draws attendees from many faraway places, based on past participation and 2024 registrations.
“We usually have somebody from Hawaii,” Doug Joyner said, with visitors from Canada regularly providing the gathering with an international presence and sometimes countries more distant being represented.
Others hail from such states as California, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and elsewhere.
Their collective appreciation for the bluegrass and old-time sounds is what brings them here each year, the Joyners agree, which is part of a pattern lasting throughout the warmer months.
“This is like a circuit, like a carnival,” Doug Joyner commented regarding various convention stopovers involved around the country.
“I guess we’re the first one.”
Workshops, dances planned
Other convention-related attractions leading up to the start of competition next Friday night will include old-time and bluegrass workshops that are free for participants.
These are scheduled from Wednesday through Friday — 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. each day — in the grandstand at Veterans Memorial Park, to include fiddle, banjo, vocals, guitar, jams, dance and more, led by accomplished performers.
The workshops are being hosted by the Surry Arts Council and Veterans Memorial Park Inc., made possible through support from a presenting sponsor, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
(A complete workshop schedule listing times and those to conduct the sessions is available on the Surry Arts Council Facebook page.)
Also leading up to the convention’s official start will be a series of dances, including one Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. featuring The Nunn Brothers and Friends.
Also, an old-time dance planned Wednesday at the same time will be led by Mac Traynham, Kevin Fore, Wesley Clifton, Riley Baugus, Kyle Dean Smith and Chester McMillian; and another one Thursday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. is to include those same performers.
The general admission cost at the park for the convention will a $10 wristband on both Friday and Saturday.
Registration information, rules and other convention details are available on the event’s website at https://www.surryarts.org/mafiddlersconvention .
Most Popular
Comments / 0