Ballads and Ballad Books – A Word and Music Performance by Sharyn McCrumb and Jack Hinshelwood

Ballads and Ballad Books – A Word and Music Performance by Sharyn McCrumb and Jack Hinshelwood

This special event is presented by the Lifelong Learning Institute on behalf of Virginia Tech Continuing and Professional Education, and the Lyric Theatre.
 
Saturday, April 7
2:00 - 4:00 pm
The Lyric Theatre, Blacksburg
Cost:  $5 payable at the door
 
Take the writing of Sharyn McCrumb and the music of Jack Hinshelwood and combine them for an entertaining program highlighting the Ballad Novels of Appalachian novelist Sharyn McCrumb.

This internationally acclaimed program brings together the ballads that are woven throughout Sharyn’s novels with Jack performing the ballads as Sharyn reads and discusses her work. This program has been presented at various venues in the United States, Canada, and across Europe.

Novels that are featured include If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, She Walks These Hills, The Rosewood Casket, The Ballad of Frankie Silver, The Songcatcher, Ghost Riders, and St. Dale.  Sharyn will also discuss and do a book-signing for her new novel, The Unquiet Grave.
 
PRESENTERS

Prolific novelist Sharyn McCrumb is a graduate of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with an M.A. from Virginia Tech.  She lives and works in the Virginia Blue Ridge.  Her novels have been translated into eleven languages and she has lectured at Oxford University, the University of Bonn, Smithsonian Institution, and taught a writers workshop in Paris.

Among her many awards are the Mary Frances Hobson Prize for Southern Literature from Chowan College (2014), Achievement in Literature Award from the NC Daughters of the American Revolution (2014), the Perry F. Kendig Award for Literary Arts (2011), Virginia Woman of History from the Library of Virginia (2008), an Audie Award for Best Recorded Book (2004), and the Wilma Dykeman Award for Regional Historical Literature (2003).


Jack Hinshelwood is Executive Director of the Crooked Road, Virginia’s Music Heritage Trail, based in Abingdon, Virginia.  He is an accomplished musician who began playing Appalachian and Bluegrass music in 1972.  In 1982, he won the guitar championship at the World’s Fair in Knoxville.  Bluegrass Unlimited magazine described Jack as “a fine quick-picker with a weathered, welcoming voice’ for his 1992 recording Dark Run.

Since 1994, Jack has been playing guitar and fiddle with the Celtibillies, a four-member group that has released three recordings.  The group performed at the 2003 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington.  Under Jack’s leadership, the Crooked Road generates over $9 million annually for Virginia’s economy.

For Jack's website, please visit http://mshajobtour.com/jmh/neighbors/jack-hinshelwood/