FRANKLIN COUNTY GOES LIVE ALL SUMMER
Summer Sounds 2001 is Franklin County's premiere outdoor concert series. The series opens with Mister French on Sunday, June 24, 2001, in Highgate. The complete schedule is shown below.
This year, we have 15 live free concerts lined up for every Sunday evening throughout the summer. Concerts always alternate between the Highgate Municipal Park and Taylor Park in St Albans. The popular series also places individual concerts in Fairfax, Franklin, Richford, and St Albans Bay.
The lineup of new performers, new venues, and new sponsors includes a medley of a capella, bluegrass, classical, country, folk, pop, and classic rock-n-roll. Each summer concert is free. Settle in on your own blanket or lawn chair and enjoy outdoor family music. Bring your own bug spray. And remember to check out our new series of commercials on WWSR-1420 AM and WLFE-102.3 FM and WLFE-1070 AM. Jasper has somehow lost the lovely Jewel; he picked out his official Summer Sounds quest kit and will spend the summer seeking her far and wide.
Blues singer Nobby Reed formally starts our new relationship with St Albans Town as Summer Sounds offers concerts at the beginning and the end of the summer in the Bay Park. Country star Amy Gallatin and Stillwater will be there for Labor Day. Singer/songwriter Carol Abair was a finalist in the Vermont state song contest. She will be joined by Craig Anderson, Karen McFeeters, and John Gibbons in Highgate. North Country Fair will bring a 5 piece Celtic/Canadian/French/River Dance troupe for the first time to St Albans. The Burlington Ecumenical Gospel Choir is our first offering in Highgate. Singer/songwriter Josh Brooks has his own show in Fairfax. He will be joined by Jim LaClair. The Zuccinni Brothers, PBS family entertainers, will finish the season in Highgate.
Click here for more information about each performer.
"Free" concerts are expensive to stage. The six towns, local business sponsors, and the All Arts Council hire the bands, create the publicity, and set up all 15 shows. Summer Sounds also welcomes two new sponsors to the series: the Highgate Manor and Vermont Colleges. They join Chevalier Drilling, Dexter Products, Fairfax busineses, Franklin busineses, Main Street Merchants in St Albans, NMC, O. C. McCuin & Sons, Ray's Extrusion Dies, Richford retailers, St Albans attorneys, St Albans new car dealers, St Albans Realtors, the Tyler Place, and our media sponsors, the Buyer's Digest, County Courier, and WWSR/WLFE. These businesses need your support to continue. Please remember to thank the hosts and patronize the sponsors.
Besides the music, food is a big part of the fun of an outdoor concert. Local community groups will host each event with special activities, family fun, bake sales, grilled hot dogs, and even ice cream socials to make every Sunday a great family holiday in the park. This year, the Boy Scouts, BPW, the Congregational Church, Fairfax Bike Path Committee, Foster Grandparents, Franklin County Humane Society, Girl Scouts, Highgate Cares, Highgate Library, Highgate Methodist Church, Highgate Historical Society, Holy Trinity, and Modern Woodmen host the concerts in each town. Watch this space for the details.
Summer Sounds concerts are always in a Town park, always on Sunday evenings at 7 p.m., and always free. The concert sites are the the BFA-Fairfax gazebo, the Town Hall lawn in Franklin, the Municipal Park in Highgate, Davis Park in Richford, the Taylor Park band shell in St Albans City, and the Bay Park in St Albans Town. The rain sites are the Methodist Church and/or the Highgate Manor, the Congregational Church in St Albans, and the Town Hall in Franklin. The rain sites will be announced in Fairfax, Richford, and St Albans Bay.
