Nashville Dulcimers in the Round to benefit roots music education program

Release Date: 10/24/2005. Expired: 11/12/2005

Two of Nashville’s premier dulcimer players will host a special concert at The Renaissance Center in Dickson Saturday, Nov. 12, to benefit a program that promotes America’s roots music.

Tickets for Nashville Dulcimers in the Round are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $6 for children under 13. The 7 p.m. concert in the Performance Hall is being hosted by Adie Grey and David Schnaufer.

The concert is a benefit for American Roots Music Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing awareness and appreciation of American roots music, its history and culture by providing educational opportunities for people of all ages. ARME provides interactive performances and educational programs for students in public and private schools and other organizations such as community center and after-school programs primarily in the Middle Tennessee area.

ARME defines American roots music as “music that developed in the United States and includes styles such as bluegrass, jazz, Tejano, blues, folk and Native American music.”

Grey and Schnaufer will host a concert of dulcimer songwriters, featuring songwriters who compose with the aid and inspiration of the mountain dulcimer.

In addition to the concert, Grey and Schnaufer will host two workshops that same day that will focus on the dulcimer’s role in songwriting.

The Beginning Mountain Dulcimer workshop will be 12-2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, and tuition is $40. The workshop is for beginning to intermediate players and will focus on the dulcimer as a starting instrument for songwriters who currently don’t play but want to be able to accompany themselves.

The Mountain Dulcimer and the Nashville Number System workshop will be 3-5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, and tuition is $40. It will focus on playing in the keys A and G as well as D, and look at the most simple music theory, chord progressions and transposition as it applies to the dulcimer.

There is a $5 discount for anyone registering for both workshops.

“I’m so excited to be teaching in tandem with mountain dulcimer master and Vanderbilt professor Dave Schnaufer,” said Grey. “The show will include some of the most innovative dulcimer players in the area.”

Schnaufer is the 1976 Walnut Valley Festival mountain dulcimer champion. He also was a solo performer at the festival in 1991 and ’96 and a duet performer with Stephen Seifert in 1999 and 2000.

Raised in south Texas, Schnaufer grew up listening to “hard country” music by artists such as Bob Wills and Ernest Tubb. He later fell in love with folk rock and decided he wanted to be a musician.

Already a harmonica and Jew’s harp player, Schnaufer tried the guitar and autoharp, but couldn’t relate to the instruments. For his 21st birthday, he bought himself a mountain dulcimer and discovered his instrument.

The Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kan., held its first mountain dulcimer national championship in 1976 and Schnaufer was crowned its first champion.

He has played dulcimer for the Judds, Johnny Cash, Kathy Mattea, Hank Williams, Jr., Dan Seals, Emmylou Harris and Cyndi Lauper. After several solo recordings in which he was joined by artists like Chet Atkins, Mark O’Connor, Mark Knopfler and Albert Lee, he joined a group called the Cactus Brothers and played with them for nine years.

In 1995, Schnaufer’s dream of passing on his music became a reality when the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University added mountain dulcimer to its curriculum and appointed Schnaufer as adjunct associate professor of dulcimer.

A reviewer in the July 1990 issue of Library Journal called Schnaufer “the Eric Clapton of the dulcimer.”

Grey’s music has been called “brand new old time music” - the title of her first CD -- while her voice has been described as “somewhere between Dolly Parton and Pam Tillis in character” and similar to Alison Krauss “but stronger.”

Writing songs and singing is an old family tradition for Grey.

“I’ve been around songwriters my whole life,” she said. “My cousins, the Tobias Brothers, are in the Songwriters Hall of Fame and my grandpa, Bill Lava, wrote music for movies and TV shows. I sang my first demo for him at the age of five, a tune he wrote for the Bugs Bunny Show.”

Her first two albums contained a mix of country, folk, blues, bluegrass, swing and even a Cajun dance tune. Grey wrote or co-wrote with partner Dave MacKenzie most of the songs and guest musicians included John Hartford, Albert Lee, Jo-el Sonnier and Grammy-winning dulcimer player David Schnaufer.

“I’ve always been interested in a real variety of musical styles and, being born and raised in Los Angeles, I had the chance to try my hand at most of them,” said Grey, now a Middle Tennessee resident. “I sang in a country band with Albert Lee, with blues and R&B acts like Albert King and Hank Ballard, in Reverend James Cleveland’s Choir and I even got to work with the great jazz singer Diane Shur.”

Grey moved to Nashville in 1989 to pursue a full-time songwriting career.

She has worked in the studio with people like Bonnie Raitt, Vonda Shepard, Jo-el Sonnier, John Hartford, Al Kooper, Pam Tillis, Chaka Khan and Martina McBride, among others. She regularly plays festivals and tours internationally and has been the coordinator of the Blues in the Schools program in Nashville. Grey was invited to perform at the Walnut Valley Festival in 1999 and again this year.

Grey released her third album, How to Find a Rainbow, in spring 2005.

For more information on the Nashville Dulcimers in the Round benefit concert or dulcimer workshops, call (615)740-5600 or visit The Renaissance Center’s web site at www.rcenter.org. To register for a workshop, call (615)740-5545. To purchase tickets for the concert, call (615)740-5570.

The Renaissance Center is a fine arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Events - Concerts and Recitals page for more about musical performances.

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