Friday, March 9th, 2012
7:30 pm - 9:15 pm
High in the Blue Ridge
Award winning, critically acclaimed, passionate and playful — they’re all that and married too! Al & Amy use acoustic guitars, mandolin, Celtic harp, banjo and Appalachian dulcimer to create an exciting blend of original, traditional, contemporary Celtic and Appalachian influenced music. The acoustic groove they create together is intensely personal, yet universally accessible. During their show “High in the Blue Ridge,” they combine live music with stunning photographic images of the natural surroundings near their home in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Al & Amy’s music has been used in a number of Ken Burns’ documentary films and was featured throughout the soundtrack of the 2009 EMMY-winning documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.
Al & Amy first began performing, recording and photographing together in early 1995, about the time that Al left his “day job” as Supervisor of Photo Editors at the National Geographic’s Image Collection. Before moving from the Washington, DC area to the mountains of Western North Carolina, Al & Amy won 50 WAMMIE Awards from the Washington Area Music Association. They won an INDIE from The Association for Independent Music, and Al won a GRAMMY from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Al was voted one of the Top 50 Guitarists of all time by the readers of Acoustic Guitar Magazine and in 2008 he won Silver and Bronze medals in the magazine’s “Players’ Choice Awards.” In 2010, their album, Caledon Wood was listed as one of the “Essential Albums of the Past 20 Years” in Acoustic Guitar Magazine’s 20th anniversary issue.
Al & Amy enjoy living in their mountain aerie at nearly 4,300 feet elevation, with stunning long-range views and wildlife as constant inspiration. This mountaintop setting has greatly influenced their recent musical works, and has also spurred their return to photography.
Both Al & Amy’s photographs are represented by The National Geographic Society’s Image Collection. Al studied photography from the best of the best of National Geographic’s world famous staff photographers. Al’s photos have been seen in publications as varied as the pages of National Geographic to the cover of a paperback mystery novel. His work was featured in a multimedia presentation at the National Geographic called “The Waters and the Wild” during which Al played original guitar compositions inspired by locations around Chesapeake Bay. After moving to North Carolina in 2002, he and his wife Amy White began documenting the natural world around their new home. This led to a similar multimedia project called “The Land of the Sky” that debuted at the National Geographic’s Grosvenor Auditorium. Their newest project “High in the Blue Ridge” continues with the same theme and features new music and imagery from the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
To learn more about Al & Amy, visit their website.
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