Singing on the Land

Born in Liberia, West Africa, Teli is the Musical Director and lead percussionist for The Magic of African Rhythm. He teaches drum class for adults and youth throughout North Carolina. He has traveled the U.S. and West Africa studying percussions and kora with masters. Awarded Best Original Music 2012 for his work on The Brothers Size at Manbites Dog Theater by Indy Weekly Magazine, his kora playing was recorded for the score of I Love My Hair On Good Days Then Again When it’s Defiant and Impressive in March of the same year. Teli was most recently was featured on Kim Arrington’s sophomore album Getting II Yes.

Carly Prentis Jones is a theater artist and vocalist performing on stages throughout the region. She is a versatile performer - spanning opera, art song, musical theater, classic and contemporary theater. Some of her most favorite musical performance credits include: Camila in In The Heights, Nettie in Carousel, Lady In Green in For Colored Girls, and Dorothy in The Wiz, Nettie in The Color Purple, Sarah in Ragtime, and Lily in The Secret Garden. As a classically trained singer, Carly enjoys performing as a recitalist and as a soloist with sacred venues and organizations. She attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where she earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, a Bachelor of Arts in Black Music History, and a minor in Arts Management. You may follow Carly’s performance work at carlyprentisjones.com.

Taylor McCullen, bagpiper, plays at Alamance Battleground State Historic Site.

Andrea Moore: Soprano Andrea Edith Moore brings a “certain opalescence that is particularly served by her impressive phrasing and inherent musicality” (operagasm.com) Moore has triumphed with Maestros Vladimir Ashkenazy, Andreas Mitisek, Timothy Myers, Gerard Schwartz, and David Zinman and with the Hamburg Kammeroper, Central City Opera, Aspen Opera Theater and the Richard Tucker Foundation. She is a regular principle artist with the North Carolina Opera where she has starred in the roles of The Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Micaëla in Carmen, the High Priestess in Aida, Dianarah in Hercules vs. Vampires and the roles of the Girl and Mother in Family Secrets: Kith & Kin by Daniel Thomas Davis. 

Active in new music, Moore commissioned, produced and premiered Family Secrets: Kith & Kin by Daniel Thomas Davis, a work she recently recorded with members of Eighth Blackbird. She sang the role of Sara in Jennifer Higdon’s new opera Cold Mountain and recently gave the world premiere of Eric Schwartz’s live film-score accompanying The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. On June 20, 2020, she’ll premiere Kenneth Frazelle’s evening-length song-cycle Through the Window commissioned by Mallarme Chamber Players and Come Hear NC. In the fall of 2020, she premieres a new work by Annika Socolofsky commissioned by ~Nois.  Moore has established herself among the early music-making community taking part in several years of the North Carolina HIP (Historically Informed Practice) Festival with Mallarme Chamber Players and as a soloist on the Bach Cantata Series at Duke Chapel.

Moore is a prize-winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and has been twice awarded the Yale School of Music Alumni Award. Ms. Moore holds degrees from Yale University, Peabody Conservatory of Music at The Johns Hopkins University and UNC School of the Arts. Moore has served on the faculty of UNC-CH and now teaches privately, sings full time, is mom to an energetic 4-year-old and with her husband owns two restaurants, Alley Twenty Six in Durham and James Beard American-Classic: Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill. - NC Opera

With the help of his mother, Bill Amey was educated at the University of North Carolina School of Music in Greensboro, North Carolina where he earned a Bachelor of Music Education Degree. He began to work weekends with entertainers like Barbara Eden (“I Dream of Jeanie”), Aaron Purdie (drummer for James Brown), The Modulations (Buddah Records). Bill appeared with Barbara Eden (I Dream Of Jeannie), Millie Jackson, and other major acts traveling through North Carolina. Upon graduation Bill relocated to New York where he gave most of his attention to the jazz idiom. He was fortunate enough to continue his study of music with trombonists of historic stature: J. J. Johnson, Curtis Fuller, and Slide Hampton as well as becoming a student at Jazzmobile, a Manhattan-based summer study program for young musicians operated by Dr. Billy Taylor, The Heath Brothers, Curtis Fuller, Frank Foster and others. Bill’s first international tour came when Hugh Maskela auditioned him for the band. That tour opened the door to radio, television, and live performances with artists such as Cecil Payne, Bob Trowers, Wallace Roney, Steve Torre and Tom Harrell, to name a few. Whether playing in an orchestra, big band, jazz ensemble, or small group, Bill Amey continues to have things to say musically. - From BillAmey.com

Watch and listen to Arnold Richardson and Netye Lynch’s performance at Historic Halifax. Arnold Richardson plays a hand-carved red cedar American Indian Flute and Netye Lynch accompanies him on the hand drum at Magazine Spring, a sacred place to the Haliwa-Saponi tribe.  

Arnold Richardson is a musician, sculptor, and storyteller and member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe of eastern North Carolina. His work spans decades, starting in 1972 when he returned to North Carolina with a focus on revitalizing the cultural heritage of eastern North Carolina’s American Indians. In this performance, we hear Arnold play an American Indian Flute, the oldest melodic instrument in the Western Hemisphere. His prowess on this sacred instrument, along with his ability as a stone sculptor, gourd carver, and percussionist led him to be the American Indian Folk Artist for the North Carolina Arts Council from 1982 to 1989 and a North Carolina Heritage Award recipient in 2004.

Multi-instrumentalist and teacher Jim Vipperman grew up in a musically rich family and community in Surry County. His father, John Vipperman, whose musical career included a stint with Bill Monroe’s band in 1951, encouraged Jim to play, taking him to fiddlers’ conventions, dances, and visits to local musicians. In the 1980s, Jim started giving lessons at the local music store and at Surry County Community College. In 1991, he began teaching for the Surry County Arts Council, and in 1995 he opened his own shop. “Today, I spend about 80 percent of my time giving lessons,” he says. He teaches weekly lessons for the Arts Council, and he has a host of private students. He teaches fiddle, mandolin, banjo, guitar, and bass in several styles through his shop, Vip’s Violins. Jim also continues to perform at local and regional festivals, fiddler’s conventions, and other events. He has performed with the Doug Dillard band at Mayberry Days since the late 1990s. Jim has won more top-ten awards—thirteen—than any other fiddle competitor in the history of the Galax Fiddler’s Convention, including First Place in 1991. The Mount Airy Fiddler’s Convention has bestowed the First Place honor on him nine times.

Blue Ridge Music Trail Directory Listing

Lakota John is a blues musician from Pembroke, North Carolina. He grew up listening to and absorbing his dad’s music library, and he picked up harmonica at age 6, and the guitar at age 7. He learned to play guitar left-handed, in standard tuning (like Carrboro’s folk matriarch Elizabeth Cotten) and was soon intrigued by the sound of the slide guitar. At age 10, he bought himself a glass slide, placed it on his pinky finger, and he has been sliding over the frets ever since. Lakota John channels traditional styles of the blues, ragtime,  jazz, and roots music through his slide guitar, banjo, mandolin, and harmonica and draws on his Native heritage with sounds of the American Indian flute. In 2009, he joined the Music Maker Relief Foundation, performing locally as one of their Next Generation Artists. He has performed at the North Carolina Museum of History, Shakori Hills Music Festival, and for The PineCone Music Series and the North Carolina Indian Heritage Celebration. 

Lakota John
Instagram:  @lakotajohn_
Facebook: @lakotajohnmusic
Website: www.lakotajohn.com

Rissi Palmer is a country, pop, R&B/Soul songwriter from Raleigh, N.C. Raised in a musical family that loved both country & R&B, she was offered her first publishing and label deals at 19. In 2007, she released her debut album with the single “Country Girl,” which hit No. 54 on the Billboard Hot Country charts, making her the first African-American woman to chart in country music since Dona Mason in 1987. Rissi has performed at The White House, Lincoln Center, and the Grand Ole Opry, has appeared on Oprah & Friends, CNN, the CBS Early Show, and the Tavis Smiley Show. She has shared stages with Taylor Swift, The Eagles, Chris Young, and Charley Crockett, and she has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, People, Parade, Ebony, Newsweek, and The Huffington Post. This summer Rissi just launched Color Me Country, a podcast about the black and brown women of Country/Americana/Roots Music.

Rissi Palmer
Instagram:  @rissipalmermusic
Facebook:   @RissiPalmerOfficial 
Twitter:   @RissiPalmer
Website: rissipalmermusic.com