Sat 12/7 @ 8PM
Every December at the Kent Stage there’s a display of guitar wizardry called the Woodchopper’s Ball.
But this isn’t an event for your budding Yngwie Malmsteens, full of speed-demon electrified sizzle and flash.
The guitars are acoustic and the players are finger-style guitarists, which gives their music a bent toward folk and roots music genres. You’ll hear influences from rock to bluegrass to classical to South American music.
Cleveland’s Brian Henke (pictured), one of the area’s leading proponents of the style for the last two decades and the organizer of the event for the last 11 years, is among the nine artists showcased.
The others come from all over — Muriel Anderson from Chicago, Helen Avakian from upstate New York, Pete Huttlinger from Nashville, Indiana’s Michael Kelsey, Florida’s Andy Wahlberg, New York City’s Mark Sganga, South Carolina’s Roger Hardin, and Atlanta’s James McKinney, a ringer who plays banjo.
Ohio folksinger Charley Brown hosts, as he has all of the previous Woodchopper’s Balls.
Tickets are $25. As usual, the money raised benefits the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless.
www.thekentstage.com/woodchoppers-ball/