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"A song makes you think. A song makes you feel. And if you're lucky, a song makes you move."

--- Peter Gabriel

Mountain Stage NewSong Show Aug. 28 in Shepherdstown, W.Va., Features Rhonda Vincent and The Rage, Suzzy and Maggie Roche, Beth Nielsen Chapman and other Acts to Close Out Five-Day National Festival

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1. Aug. 28 Mountain Stage NewSong Show Overview
2. To Purchase Tickets
3. Mountain Stage Show Biography
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The 2005 Mountain Stage NewSong Festivalwill finish in powerhouse style with a show Aug. 28 in Shepherdstown, W.Va., featuring Rhonda Vincent and The Rage, Suzzy and Maggie Roche, Fiamma Fumana, Beth Nielsen Chapman, The Alison Brown Band with Joe Craven and the winner of this year’s NewSong performing songwriter contest.

Now in its fourth year, the Mountain Stage NewSong Festival is the ‘Sundance’ of performing songwriters, celebrating the crafting and live performance of original songs in all genres, from Americana, blues, folk and pop, to world music, jazz, country, hip-hop and beyond. The multifaceted event takes place Aug. 24 to 28, with concerts, showcases, contests, a songcamp and jamming in venues across hip and historic Shepherdstown, located just 90 minutes from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

The festival concludes with a performance of Mountain Stage with Larry Groce, 6 to 8 p.m., Aug. 28, in the Frank Center on the Shepherd University campus. (PLEASE NOTE: there is limited seating at the Center and the show is expected to sell out, so early ticket purchases are advised.) The show will be taped live for international broadcast on the more than 100 radio stations, along with XM Satellite Radio and Voice of America, that broadcast the acclaimed live performance music program, now in its 23rd year.

“ The Mountain Stage show lineup features acts who are prime examples of NewSong’s mission of focusing on great songwriting matched with great live performances,” said NewSong Producer and Co-Founder Gar Ragland.

Mountain Stage show tickets cost $22 advance, $27 at the door. For tickets to the show and for NewSong Festival passes and more, see www.newsongfestival.com/tickets or call 800-594-TIXX (8499). For media inquiries, including photos for stories and artist interviews, contact Mary Sue Twohy at Marysue@newsongfestival.com Or call (202) 483-1105.

MOUNTAIN STAGE NEWSONG SHOW LINEUP:

Rhonda Vincent and The Rage: A list of Contemporary Bluegrass star Rhonda Vincent’s high-profile awards would take up a lot of space, but you could start with her 2004 Grammy win, and move on to the “Entertainer of the Year” win plus four years of “Female Vocalist of the Year” awards from the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association). The Wall Street Journal dubbed her the “Queen of Bluegrass.”

She broke open the Contemporary Bluegrass field’s prior limits on female performers to softly sung, mournful ballads with her attack style of mandolin, progressive chord structures, fast-paced vocals, and self-written new music, not to mention her black leather jeans. “I see bluegrass as the ‘sister music’ of country music and am glad to finally see that radio programmers are beginning to agree,” Vincent says.
MORE: www.rhondavincent.com/
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Suzzy and Maggie Roche: Suzzy and Maggie Roche came to acclaim as part of the sisterly trio The Roches, blending influences from church choir music, traditional Irish folk, contemporary folk, rock, country, and pop with their own innate musical sensibilities. Whether singing Handel a cappella or a song of their own creation, their incandescent voices and skill take songs to ethereal levels.

Suzzy and Maggie have a recent CD out on Red House Records, “Why the Long Face,” which a Washington Times reviewer says “demands attentive listening” with its mix of original tunes and songs built on other sources such as poems and prayers.. “[They] combine their unearthly voices into compelling arrangements.”
MORE: www.roches.com/suzzy/index.html/
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Fiamma Fumana: This band was formed in 1999 with the aim of merging old Italian dance tunes and new ballads played to new Italian dance grooves and state-of-the art electronica. The world has since found them out. They’ve become a globe-trotting act whose sound a Rootsworld reviewer summed up as “a global village rave.”

The group’s original members include an accordionist/guitarist/pianist active in Italy’s folk-rock scene; an electronic musician and record producer; and a 22-year-old female singer from the Italian countryside. A couple of other young. progressive female singers, instruments and sounds have since been added, including Emilian bagpipes, flutes, electric bass, loops and samples, for an exhilarating sound one reviewer described as “credible in both dance clubs and coffeehouses.”
MORE: www.fiamma.org/fiammafumana/
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Beth Nielsen Chapman: She is one of the most successful performing songwriters on the scene today. Such stars as Bonnie Raitt, Bette Midler, Keb Mo and Roberta Flack have all recorded her songs. Her co-written song “This Kiss,” as recorded by Faith Hill, won ASCAP’s 1999 Song of the Year, earning a Grammy nomination. Her 2004 single “Free” went No. 1 on the BBC-Radio 2 chart. Stars can’t keep away from her tunes: “Happy Girl” (Martina McBride), “Nothing I Can Do About it Now” (Willie Nelson), “Here We Are” (Alabama), and “Sand and Water” (Elton John).

A powerful live and recorded performer, it’s likely you’ve heard her songs on TV and film, including “The Rookie,” “Calendar Girls,” and “We Were Soldiers” and TV shows “Dawson’s Creek,” “ER,” “Providence” and “Felicity.” “My success as a songwriter has provided me the opportunity have a lot of freedom as an artist,” she says. “I haven’t had the pressure of having to ‘make it’ on the charts. I’ve always been really grateful that I can make whatever kind of record I want.”
MORE: www.bethnielsenchapman.com
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Alison Brown Band w/Joe Craven: Alison Brown first made her mark on the national scene when asked by Alison Krauss to join her band Union Station in 1989. As a headline performer in her own right, she as achieved an international reputation as a banjo player by pushing the instrument out of its familiar Appalachian settings into new musical territory. Through four albums on the renowned Vanguard label and one on her own Compass Records, she has composed and played her way into the affections of fans of jazz-hued acoustic music with her unique voice teamed with the five-string banjo.

Joe Craven has been described as “a madman with anything that has strings attached,” including hospital bed pans, gas cans, cookie tins, fiddles, mandolins, tenor guitars, saz, cuatro and a world of percussion instruments including animal bones, squeeze toys, cake pans, waste cans, umbrella stands, martini shakers and… himself. His stage setup more often resembles a yard sale
MORE:
www.alisonbrown.net
www.joecraven.com/
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Winner of NewSong Contest: The 2005 NewSong Contest, presented by Performing Songwriter Magazine, received entries from around the world. The finals of the contest take place during the Mountain Stage NewSong Festival and one finalist will be chosen by Mountain Stage host Larry Groce to perform one of their winning songs on the festival-closing Mountain Stage show.
MORE: For more on the NewSong Contest see
www.newsongfestival.com/contest/
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FOR MORE ON MOUNTAIN STAGE, see:
www.mountainstage.org

MOUNTAIN STAGE BACKGROUND:

MOUNTAIN STAGE is a much esteemed and beloved live performance music program heard worldwide on more than 100 radio stations, XM Satellite Radio and “the Voice of America.” Now in its 21st year, the show has a long and storied tradition of featuring national and international acts in all styles of music and of launching new acts to stardom.

Michael Doucet of
Beausoleil

The 2005 NewSong Festival concludes with a live Mountain Stage show in Shepherdstown, W.Va., on Sunday, Aug. 28, to be recorded and later broadcast worldwide. The grand-prize winner of the NewSong Contest presented by Performing Songwriter magazine will appear on that show.

Elvis Costello

Mountain Stage presents acts ranging from traditional roots, blues and country, to avant-garde rock, world beat, country, jazz and more. The show's guest list is the most stylistically varied of any national radio or television performance program.

Over the years, guests have included Los Lobos, Alison Krauss, Phish, Muzikas (Hungary), Buddy Guy, Ali Farke Toure (Mali), R.E.M., John Trudell, Dr. John, The Del McCoury Band, Joan Baez, Barenaked Ladies, Randy Newman, Chucho Valdes (Cuba), Ralph Stanley, John Cale, Wilco, Bobby Blue Bland, The Indigo Girls, Altan (Ireland), Lucinda Williams, Joshua Redman, Loudon Wainwright III, Richard Thompson and Norah Jones.

It would take a full page to list the nationally prominent performers who received their first national radio performance on Mountain Stage. Among them:

Kathy Mattea, Lyle Lovett, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Robert Earl Keen, Lucinda Williams, David Ball. Alison Krauss, Southern Culture on the Skids, Crash Test Dummies, Widespread Panic, Sarah McLachlan, Phish, Iris Dement, Holly Cole, Tori Amos, Barenaked Ladies, Ani DiFranco, Loreena McKinnet, Shawn Mullins, Sheryl Crow, Counting Crows, Ben Harper, Keb Mo and many more.

In other words, the show can call ‘'em. Co-producer, artistic director and host Larry Groce is joined on stage by the Mountain Stage Band, vocalist Julie Adams, pianist Bob Thompson, the "Mountain Stage" house band leader (and co-NewSong founder) Ron Sowell and the rest of the "Mountain Stage" band including Michael Lipton, Ammad Solomon and Steve Hill. The show's executive producer is Andy Ridenour. Mountain Stage, a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting , produces an average of 26 new shows a year. The program is recorded in concert at the Cultural Center Theater in the state Capitol Complex in Charleston, W.Va., and at venues and festivals around the country and in Canada.

Click here to visit the Mountain Stage website.

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