The creek-side park at Los Abrigados will be filled with that high lonesome sound for the 8th year in a row when Chamber Music Sedona presents its annual Sedona Bluegrass Festival concert June 7-8. The festival gets started on June 4 with a film screening of And Then There Was Darol and Mike at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre at 7 p.m. The film is hosted by Darol Anger, the festival’s artistic director and a professor of violin at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Darol and his band, The Furies, will perform at the concerts on Saturday and Sunday.
Other festival events include Bluegrass BBQ at the Segner Ranch in Oak Creek Canyon on June 5 at 5:30 p.m. Guests will dine on a catered barbecue dinner and enjoy a private concert with Darol Anger and The Furies. Tickets are $130 per couple or $70 per person. Bert Harclerode, executive director of Chamber Music Sedona, says the barbecue is always a favorite. “There’s no more than 100 people at the barbecue, so it’s an up-close-and-personal show with Darol and his band,” says Bert.
The festival continues June 5 with Bluegrass in the Galleries, part of the Sedona Gallery Association’s 1st Friday Gallery Tour. Bands will set up in Sedona galleries and perform from 5 to 8 p.m. Bluegrass MEAD Program for Youth takes place at Los Abrigados Resort & Spa on June 7 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Children in grades 8 through 12 will have the opportunity to take a workshop taught by festival musicians. Finally, the big concert begins on June 7 at noon. The lineup includes Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, Ben Sollee, Darol Anger and The Furies and Peter Rowan with special guest Yungchen Lhamo. On June 8, the concert begins at 11 a.m. Catch acts Pick and Holler, Ben Sollee, Darol Anger and The Furies and The Sonoran Dogs. Bert says the festival continues to get bigger and better each year.
“The only other festival that compares is the RockyGrass Festival in Colorado,” he says. “It’s hard to beat our setting and our artists and, of course, everything Sedona has to offer.” – Erika Ayn Finch
SEDONA CALENDAR: Events, activities, shows, happenings
