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Greensboro, NC - The Eastern Music Festival's (EMF) Fringe Series, the alternative music spinoff to the long-running and internationally-acclaimed EMF Festival & School, proudly announces its fringe in the fall lineup.

On December 4th, as part of Downtown Greensboro’s First Friday events, the Greensboro Cultural Center (200 N. Davie St., first floor) will host an EMFfringe Party: Rockin’ the Christmas Tree with Lawyers, Guns & Money with special guest Logie Meachum at 8 pm. Tickets are just $10 and there is free parking and easy access to the show from the Church Street Parking Deck. This concert is sponsored by McRae Roofing and VunCannon Music Productions.

LGM is Terry VunCannon (guitars & lap steel), Stan Atwell (bass, guitar & vocals), Mike Thomas (drums & vocals), and Rob Slater (guitars). This is a band with something different in mind...the band performs Blues, R&B, Classic Rock, & even Motown, with a healthy dose of instrumentals mixed in their live show. With material ranging from BB King and Robert Cray to Delbert McClinton to Jeff Beck, they have something for everyone.

Lorenzo "Logie" Meachum has been performing literature, stories, and music nationally for more than 30 years. As a blues musician and ethnomusicologist, he is one of the original founders of the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society and in 1995 received the Keeping The Blues Alive Award. The muli-faceted Meachum is also an award-winning educator, guest lecturer, author, actor, composer, director, and playwright. Most recently, Logie was honored in 2008 with the prestigious O. Henry Award for outstanding lifetime contribution to the arts by the United Arts Council and Greensboro Chamber of Commerce.

EMFfringe is proud to welcome three award-winning songwriters to Triad Stage (232 S. Elm St., Greensboro) on Wednesday, December 9th at 7:30pm for Redbird Round: An Evening with songwriters Alice Gerrard, Laurelyn Dossett, and Diane Jones. The trio will only be performing a short series of concerts and this performance will serve as their opening night. Inspired by the “In the Round” sessions at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, these talented singer/songwriters will perform together and take turns singing songs and telling the stories behind them. Tickets are $20.

Alice Gerrard is a talent of legendary status. In a career spanning some 40 years, she has known, learned from, and performed with many of the old-time and bluegrass greats, especially her groundbreaking collaboration with Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens during the 1960s and 70s. The duo produced four classic LPs (reissued by Rounder and Smithsonian Folkways on CD) and influenced scores of young women singers. Alice in turn, has earned worldwide respect for her own important contributions to the music as a singer and songwriter, as the founder of the Old-Time Herald magazine, for her advocacy of traditional music, and for the work she has done with traditional music as a musician, record producer, and documenter. It all started when the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music changed her life back in 1959...she's been writing new chapters ever since.

Songwriter Laurelyn Dossett is bringing Appalachia, banjos and folklore themes to new audiences as a unique collaborator in dramatic theater and symphony projects. She lives and writes in the piedmont of North Carolina, and her songs tend to reflect the stories of the region, both traditional and contemporary. She co-founded Polecat Creek with singing partner Kari Sickenberger, and has partnered with playwright Preston Lane on four successful plays featuring regional folklore and original music. One of these songs, “Anna Lee” was featured on Levon Helm’s Grammy-winning record, Dirt Farmer. She is also a regular performer at regional music festivals such as Merlefest, a guest on the radio show Prairie Home Companion, and most recently, a writer and performer with the North Carolina Symphony. She is the 2009 recipient of the North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship for songwriting.

Diana Jones' songwriting has a powerful connection to the sounds of old-time Appalachia. One of her songs, “Henry Russell's Last Words,” has been recorded by Joan Baez, while another, “If I Had a Gun," has been recorded by Gretchen Peters. Diana’s own versions of those songs can be heard on her new album, released on Proper Records, “Better Times Will Come," an ambitious effort that consolidates and extends the leap forward of her previous recordings. According to the New York Times “...Better Times Will Come, her unvarnished new album, marks both the culmination of this process and the arrival of a fresh and distinctive voice....She sings of the hard times, murderous urges and chilling loneliness that haunt the old Anglo-Celtic ballads but, with one exception, sets her plain-spoken narratives resolutely in the present..."

Tickets for both shows will be available beginning Monday, November 2nd at http://www.EasternMusicFestival.org or by calling EMF’s Box Office at Triad Stage at 336.272.0160 or 866.579.TIXX.

*service fees apply. Dates, programs and artists are subject to change.

For more information about EMF or its programs, please visit www.EasternMusicFestival.org, or call toll-free: 1-877-833-6753.

For 48 years, the Eastern Music Festival & School has been recognized for its prodigious contributions to the field of classical music and its commitment to nurturing talented American and international youth through a collaborative learning process. The program brings together a cross-section of America’s most sought-after artists with pre-professional students in a five-week schedule of more than 100 concerts and music-related events. Music Director Gerard Schwarz heads a distinguished list of participating artists each season. Recent performers included Yo-Yo Ma, Sarah Chang, Midori, André Watts, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, Elmar Oliveira, Bruce Hornsby, Bela Fleck, and Chick Corea, plus many others. EMF alumni include Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Eliot Chapo, Randall Hodgkinson, Gustavo Romero and Chauncey Patterson. Please mark your calendar for EMF’s 2010 season – June 26 through July 31, 2010.

The Eastern Music Festival’s mission is to promote musical enrichment, excellence, professional collaboration, innovation and diversity through a nationally-recognized teaching program, music festival, concerts and other programs which will enhance the quality of life, health and vitality of our region.