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 present about 30 free music and dance performances on Saturday.

The five-member Balsam Range band features three WCU alumni – Grammy Award-winning banjo player Marc Pruett, fiddler Buddy Melton and bass player Tim Surrett. Along with mandolin player 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.

“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 fundraiser 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 (828) 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

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 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 is located on the ground floor of H.F. Robinson Administration 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 rifled musket; a woodcutting contest featuring chainsaw and crosscut saw masters; and other just-for-fun competitions, including a 5-K foot race, 1-mile Fun Run for children, antique auto show, costume contests for children and adults, and a beard and moustache 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 out 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 (828) 227-3193 or visit mountainheritageday.com.

MOUNTAIN HERITAGE DAY SCHEDULES

GENERAL EVENTS

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. – 5-K 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
(10 a.m. – 5 p.m.)

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
R.O. Wilson – crosscut saw sharpening

TRADITIONAL MUSIC STAGE
(Trina Royar, moderator)

10 a.m. – Choirs of Jackson County    
10:35 a.m. – Wayne Seymour 
11:10 a.m. – Gar Mosteller and Doyle Barker  
11:45 a.m. – The Welch Family
12:20 p.m. – The Queen Family  
1 p.m. – Blue Ridge Rounders
1:30 p.m. – The Deitz Family   
2:05 p.m. – The Fisher Family   
2:50 p.m. – Young Heritage Musicians
3:30 p.m. – Charles Shuler and Friends

CIRCLE TENT

9 a.m. – Judges select the winners for the “Best in the West” molasses recipe contest
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
11:30 a.m. – Interpretive discussion with the Warriors of AniKituhwa dance group of Cherokee
12 p.m. 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 Stewart
3 p.m. – Banjo Circle, with moderator Wayne Seymour, Josh Johnson and J.R. Queen

NORTON MUSIC STAGE
(Bill Nichols, moderator)

9:30 a.m. – Frogtown Four
10 a.m. – Mountain Faith
10:30 a.m. – Warriors of AniKituhwa
11 a.m. – Stoney Creek Boys
11:15 a.m. – Dixie Darlin’ Cloggers
11:25 a.m. – Dixie Darlin’ Cloggers-Second Generation
11:35 a.m. – Cullowhee Valley Cloggers
11:45 a.m. – Fiddling Dills Sisters and the Cullowhee Valley Boys
12:15 p.m. – Presentation of Mountain Heritage Awards and Eva Adcock Award, costume contests, beard and moustache contests
12:30 p.m. – Phil and Gaye Johnson
1 p.m. – Balsam Range
1:30 p.m. – Whitewater Bluegrass Co.
2 p.m. – Wild Hog Band
2:30 p.m. – Stoney Creek Boys
2:45 p.m. – Rough Creek Cloggers
3 p.m. – Mountain Valley Cloggers
3:15 p.m. – Buddy, Carol, Jamie
3:45 p.m. – French Kirkpatrick
4:15 p.m. – Pirates of the Tuckaseigee

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Last modified: Friday, Sept. 19, 2008