Grammy Award Winner Dom Flemons to Perform at Mars Hill University's Owen Theatre

Mars Hill, NC (03/08/2023) — The Liston B. Ramsey Center for Appalachian Studies at Mars Hill University is excited to announce an upcoming concert featuring Dom Flemons on Saturday, April 29, 2023 at 7:30pm at the Owen Theatre on the university's campus. Tickets are available for purchase now at www.mhu.edu/flemons-concert.

Dom Flemons, a two-time EMMY nominee and 2020 United States Artists Fellow, is a multi-talented musician, songwriter, producer, actor, music scholar, historian, and record collector. Flemons is known as The American Songster due to his repertoire of music covering over 100 years of early American popular music. Flemons is considered an expert player on various instruments including the banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife, and rhythm bones.

Leila Weinstein, program coordinator for the Ramsey Center, said, "This concert is one way that MHU can give to its community: this is an opportunity to see a Grammy Award-winning musician in an intimate, professionally-produced concert here in Madison County. In addition, we've tried to ensure that this arts experience is available to all: Tickets are priced on a sliding scale, with a limited number of pay-what-you-can tickets."

Flemons' music connects to the deep historical roots of American music. As a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, he learned from North Carolina fiddler Joe Thompson, who at the time was one of the last musicians to be playing in the African American string band tradition. Flemons also released an award-winning album in 2018 as part of Smithsonian Folkways' African American Legacy Recordings series that explored black contributions to country music and western history.

"In addition to being a charismatic and entertaining performer, Flemons is a student and scholar of American music history, so this is also a chance to learn whilst having fun!" Weinstein said.

Prior to the concert, Flemons will host a screening of the short film "Night Music," which he co-produced with Lukas Huffman. The film was inspired by the prison recordings created by folklorist John Lomax and his son, folklorist Alan Lomax during the 1930s. This event is free, open to all, and seating is first-come/first-served. The screening will begin at 5 p.m. in Ferguson Health Sciences Center, Room 306.

For more information contact Leila Weinstein at lweinstein@mhu.edu

This concert is made possible by a generous grant from the Madison County Tourism Development Authority. The Ramsey Center is a proud site on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina.

About the Liston B. Ramsey Center for Appalachian Studies:
The Ramsey Center, named after four-time speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Liston B. Ramsey, is located in Renfro Library on the Mars Hill University campus. It houses archival resources for teaching and scholarship in its Southern Appalachian Archives and Appalachian Reading Room. Its extensive holdings-photographs, manuscripts, sound recordings, and artifacts-document aspects of mountain life and culture of interest to scholars here and abroad, holdings that have been called some of the finest in the southeastern region of the United States. These materials have been and continue to be collected by mountain people dedicated to the preservation of local culture. An endowment in support of the Ramsey Center's Southern Appalachian Archives has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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