Chautauqua Summer Music Series
Bluegrass on the Grass will celebrate its 18th year this summer.
Father's Day blues concert and ice cream social join the lineup
by Christine Dugan
The Chautauqua Summer Music Series at Dickinson College will host a Father’s Day blues concert and ice cream social on Sunday, June 15, at 4 p.m. in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium (ATS), 360 West Louther Street. The blues concert is a new addition to the series, which includes Bluegrass on the Grass and the Buzz Jones Big Band.
The Father’s Day blues concert will feature Baltimore-based Big Boy Little, with opener Mitch Ivanoff, a Steelton blues guitarist, accompanied by Chad Bruce on harmonica.
Bret Littlehales of Big Boy Little has been singing and playing blues in the Washington, D.C., area since 1967, opening for greats such as B.B. King, Koko Taylor and Junior Wells. His band, featuring Albert King Award-winning guitarist Matt Kelley, Robby Leebrick on drums and Wolf Crescenze on the bass, has been the house band at the Zoo Bar, D.C.’s only blues club, since 2003.
The 18th annual Bluegrass on the Grass Festival will be held on Saturday, July 12, noon through 9 p.m. on the John Dickinson Campus at the corner of High and West streets. The lineup includes Big Country Bluegrass; the Vickie Vaughn Band; the Bing Brothers Band Featuring Jake Krack; Nora Jane Struthers & the Party Line; the Dismembered Tennesseans; and Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen
The 33nd annual Buzz Jones Big Band and Ice Cream Social will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 6:30 through 8 p.m. on the Drayer porch, behind Drayer Hall, located at 60 S. College Street.
The Chautauqua Summer Music Series began in the 1970s at Dickinson by associate deans Margaret Garrett and Susan Nichols with the objective of creating a summer musical arts series open to the public. The series also was designed to share music with residents of central Pennsylvania and cultivate sustaining art forms. Initially, the musical offerings were orchestral. However, in the 1980s the series expanded to include American big band jazz, and in 1998 the Bluegrass Festival was started. This summer, with the addition of Big Boy Little, the series will feature three American musical genres: blues, bluegrass and jazz.
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Published June 11, 2014