Youth musicians from throughout Southwest Virginia will be featured at the fifth annual Crooked Road Youth Music Festival on Saturday, May 14 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Heartwood in Abingdon. Fifteen bands and traditional music programs (over 200 youth musicians) will perform throughout the day. The festival will highlight regional traditional music programs including the Albert Hash Memorial Band Program, Country Cabin String Band, Floyd JAMS, Scott County JAMS, VHCC Old Time String Band Class, Franklin County JAM Program, Washington County JAM Program, WiseJAMS–Big Stone Gap, WiseJAMS-Coeburn, and WiseJAMS–Norton. Additional performers include the Buttermilk Girls, Changing Lanes, Nick Weitzenfeld & Co., and the Yates Family. Workshops will be presented at the festival including “Appalachian Heroes and Hoodlums” at 11:30 a.m. and “Animal Songs of the Appalachians” at 12:30 p.m. with Ted Olson, and a songwriting workshop with Johnny & Jeanette Williams at 1:30 p.m. The Crooked Road Youth Music Festival is sponsored by Abingdon Convention and Visitors Bureau, Heartwood, National Endowment for the Arts, Ratcliffe Foundation, Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Wayne C. Henderson Scholarships Program, Brown Dental Associates, Tazewell Music Club, and Wordsprint. Heartwood: Southwest Virginia’s Artisan Gateway is located off I-81 at Exit 14 in Abingdon and features food, music, and craft of Southwest Virginia. Admission to the festival is $5 for adults, $2 for children six to 12, and kids five and under are admitted free. For more information call (276) 492-2409 or email: info@thecrookedroad.org. [caption id="attachment_2373" align="alignnone" width="300"]<a href="http://www.mountainmedianews.com/enterprise/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/crook-rd-Yates-Family.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-2373"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2373" src="http://www.mountainmedianews.com/enterprise/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/crook-rd-Yates-Family-300x236.jpg" alt="The Yates Family (Photo by Dusty Edwards Photography)" width="300" height="236" /></a> The Yates Family (Photo by Dusty Edwards Photography)[/caption]
