Madison County artists selected to appear at WEG

Local News

September 7, 2010

By Emily Burton Register News Writer The Richmond Register Tue Sep 07, 2010, 02:00 PM EDT

LEXINGTON — Four Madison County groups have been selected to perform as part of the World Equestrian Games.

The groups were named as some of Kentucky’s best artists and are among 64 selected from across the commonwealth.

They were chosen after a month’s long process by the Kentucky Arts Council.

All of the groups will perform at The Kentucky Experience Performance Stage, which runs Sept. 25 through Oct. 10 at the Kentucky Horse Park, the same dates as WEG.

A panel of artists picked those scheduled to perform. The Kentucky Experience Performance Stage is a part of The Kentucky Experience, which is 25,000 square feet of, “exhibits, displays, products, entertainment, food and art from across the commonwealth,” according to a website about the program.

Those chosen from Madison County were selected from hundreds of applicants. Applications were due in December 2009, and winners were informed that they had been selected early in August.

The hundreds of applicants where whittled down to 109 semi-finalists. These were further pared to the final 64.

The four local groups chosen are EKU Brass, Mitch Barrett, Madison County Dulcimers and Jennifer Rose.

Several other groups and performers were chosen as semi-finalists, and were recognized in a press release from the arts council as “among the finest performing artists in Kentucky.”

They are: Berea College Concert Choir, The Betweeners and Donna and Lewis Lamb.

Merwyn Peters, a member of Madison County Dulcimers, is one of those scheduled to perform.

The group is comprised of about 100 performers who play the lap dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, upright bass, fiddle, acoustic guitar, bowed psaltery, banjo and banjammer. A psaltery is a violin-harp hybrid that can be plucked or bowed, while a banjammer is banjo-dulcimer amalgam.

“We’re an interesting group,” Peters said. “We have no officers and no dues, we’re a group of people that get together to promote Kentucky’s official musical instrument, the mountain dulcimer.”

Promoting the only instrument credited as being invented in the United States, Peters said, and one native to Appalachia, is part of the group’s goal.

The lap dulcimer was originally considered an instrument only suited for play by women, he said.

“Because the fiddlers were the king of the road and everything was built around the fiddle,” Peters said. “It was considered fit for a woman, because it is a quiet, personal instrument.”

A second goal of the group, he said, is to create a “venue” for people who have an interest in music to express that interest.

The mountain dulcimer is played by laying the instrument flat on the lap and strumming the strings. Picks or traditionally, goose feathers, also have been used to play the instrument.

The group was founded in 1998 and began small, Peters said.

“It started with just a few people and expanded from there,” he said.

The group was glad to have been selected, Peters said.

This is the first time they will perform at an international event, and the group is excited to showcase the traditional music of the Appalachian mountains to the world, Peters said.

Madison County Dulcimers is developing a set list, he said, and has narrowed it down to about 20 songs. These will vary from known folk tunes to traditional tunes. Many of the actual melodies have been stolen from other cultures, and will be familiar to those from abroad, Peters said.

“I have never been anywhere that didn’t appreciate folk music — folk music is still important,” Peters said.

Mick Sehmann is part of EKU Brass, a faculty group at Eastern Kentucky University, which also is slated to perform.

“It is a classically-oriented group in a quintet,” he said. Unlike most five-instrument groups which play classical music, the brass quintet has only been around for a few hundred years, he said, although classical music has been around far longer.

Although the group’s repertoire is primarily classical, they do play contemporary music, such as jazz and Dixeland, Sehmann said.

“We’re very honored to be selected,” he said of the groups inclusion as part of The Kentucky Experience.

The group has performed internationally before, but Sehmann said EKU Brass is “excited” to be part of WEG.

“We were waiting so long we thought we probably wouldn’t hear back,” he said.

EKU Brass also is working on its set list for their 45-minute long performance, but has not yet made a final selection.

All groups scheduled to perform will get 45 minutes.

“It should be pretty easy for us to find music,” he said.

The other four members of EKU Brass, and faculty at the University are James Willett, Ken Haddix, Richard Byrd and James Van Fleet.

The group was founded in 1990, and Sehmann is a founding member. The quintet’s performers play tuba, trumpet, french horn and trombone.

For a full list of performance times and biographies on all performers visit, http://artscouncil.ky.gov.

Emily Burton may be reached at eburton@richmondregister.com or at 624-6694.

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