Topics Related to Come Hear NC

Header image: Freeman Vines. Photo by Tim Duffy, courtesy of Music Maker Foundation.One of our state’s greatest treasures is our legacy of folk, traditional, and blues music. The Music Maker Foundation works to preserve and foster the “roots of American music by supporting senior traditional musicians and educating the public.” Based in Hillsborough, the foundation supports senior traditional musicians, forming “long-term partnerships with them to raise their standards of living and levels of expertise,” according to the website.

(Last updated on June 24, 2024)On June 21, thousands of North Carolinians took part in our state’s first Make Music Day, the world’s largest annual music event. 150+ communities across the United States also participated in this global event. The N.C. Arts Council, as part of our mission of “Arts for All,” was proud to sponsor events that local arts councils and arts partners organized in 13 cities and counties across the state.

Photo by Sierra Turner.Last month Ocean City Jazz Festival celebrated its tenth anniversary. Founded in 2009, the festival raises awareness about the community's historic role as the first beachfront community in North Carolina where African American's could purchase property. WUNC's The State of Things invited Angela Thorpe, Director of the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission, and Carla Torrey, Ocean City Beach Citizens Council member onto their show to discuss the significance of the festival and the community it calls home. 

Photo: Connye Florance by Graham GerdemanThe General Jackson, a modern-day replica of the flat-bottomed steamers of the nineteenth century, has been paddling the waters of Tennessee’s Cumberland River since 1985.

Photo by Sandra Davidson.Today Governor Roy Cooper will officially induct Jaki Shelton Green as North Carolina’s Poet Laureate. In November of last year, Jaki added the music of her poetry to the Oxford American’s North Carolina Song Circle at Fletcher Music Hall in downtown Raleigh. We are happy to share that moment in honor of her special day!

All Photos Courtesy of the Ocean City Jazz Festival

Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten will be posthumously inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame on October 17, 2019.

On Tuesday May 28th, Mandolin Orange played a special set at the North Carolina Executive Mansion in Raleigh to help usher in a partnership between Come Hear North Carolina and the Americana Music Association (AMA). Governor Roy Cooper and First Lady Kristin Cooper hosted musicians, AMA members, and press to celebrate all that North Carolina has given to the world of music, and Mandolin Orange provided the perfect soundtrack to the occasion.

Photo Credit: Allison Lee Isley/Winston Salem JournalWinston-Salem native Margaret Vardell Sandresky, now 97, continues to play and compose music, following in the footsteps of her grandmother Linda Rumple Vardell, who founded the Conservatory of Music at Flora MacDonald College in Robeson County.

Activism and music go hand and hand for Laila Nur, a founding member of The Muslims, a black/brown/queer punk band from Durham, North Carolina.  Born in Brooklyn, New York, Laila Nur moved south after her family was priced out of the big city. Discrimination and gentrification are realities Laila understands as a queer, black, Muslim woman with working class roots. In the tradition of punk music, Laila and The Muslims channel anger, joy, and hope through the music they make about the place and time in which they live.