Promoting and strengthening the artistic and cultural development of Orange County, North Carolina
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Black n Global Roots Concert Fundraiser: Gala Lantern Supper w Abby Washburn
September 5, 2019 @ 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Please join and support Black and Global Roots Concerts’ first fundraising event as we celebrate music, food, and farming through our inaugural Lady Chef, Farmer, and Musician event. This event takes place at Lantern Restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC on Thursday September 5, 2019 from 5:30 PM-7:30 PM. Our esteemed panel of artists and hosts includes Andrea Reusing, chef and owner of Lantern, Flo Hawley and Portia McKnight of Chapel Hill Creamery, Prof CeCe Conway of Appalachian State University and Director of Black and Global (funded by NEA 2017-2019), Fiddlin Al McCanless (old time, bluegrass, Irish), and multi-talented honored guest and singer, Abigail Washburn.
The event is an intimate farm to table event with a special menu designed by Reusing to celebrate the event. Reusing will incorporate local pork provided by Chapel Hill Creamery into her special menu and also feature produce from other local farms. Prof. Conway wil act as the evenings host and will engage Abigail Washburn and others in topics ranging from music to local roots and culture. (Please advise Lantern if you have dietary restriciions: RSVP Evan Hatch).
All profits from this special 2-hour ticketed event will support Black and Global Roots Concerts. Tickets are $100 per person and will include an intimate evening with these amazing lady community leaders, innovators, and artists. A special meal, wine and intimate perfomances are part of the ticket price. Only 30 tickets are available for purchase through Event Brite. Act now to make sure you can attend this special event and support local traditional music and culture in your community. If you have dietary restrictions, please let us know in the notes section of your reservation.
Lantern Chef-owner Andrea Reusing was named one of “15 Green Chefs” on Grist’s international list, has written for Saveur, Domino, Fine Cooking, Gourmet.com and the News and Observer. She serves on the boards of the Center of Environmental Farming Systems and Chefs Collaborative. Reusing is the 2011 winner of the James Beard award for Best Chef: Southeast and the author of Cooking in the Moment. Lantern was opened in January 2002 by brother-sister team Andrea and Brendan Reusing, along with help from many friends including Silvia Pahola, Ric Palao and David Doernberg, who is responsible for our striking design and warm glow.
Chapel Hill Creamery is located near Chapel Hill in North Carolina and is home to Portia McKnight and Flo Hawley and their small herd of Jersey cows. Hawley and McKnight had each enjoyed long careers at Whole Foods Market and decided they wanted to get closer to the source of the food that they had sold. In the process of searching for a good milk source in order to begin making cheese, they found that they were unable to get the quality that they wanted. So, the decision was made to buy a small herd of Jersey cows and a 37-acre farm to ensure that the cows could be pasture-fed. Thus was born Chapel Hill Creamery and, in July of 2000, the first batch of cheese was produced. Today, Portia and Flo focus on the health of their herd of 30 cows as much as the quality of the cheese that they produce. Rotational grazing is practiced on the farm and they limit milking to March through December. The results are hard to argue with, three World Jersey Cheese Awards in 2012.
Fiddlin’ Al McCanless is a founding member of the New Deal String Band He also spent many years as fiddler for the Bluegrass Experience. They won the World Champion Bluegrass prize at the Union Grove Old Time Fiddlers Convention in 1972. Al appeared on the first Red Clay Rambler album on Folkways Records, “The Red Clay Ramblers With Fiddlin’ Al McCanless,” as well as recordings by the Bluegrass Experience, his Irish Band Celtic Jam, Mike Cross and Alice Gerrard. He now fiddles with the Bluegrass Band, Hindsight, The Merry Gadflies and the Irish group Claudine Langille (formerly of Touchstone) and the Lads (Bob Vasile, Pratie Heads, and Colin Shoemaker). Al spent many years as a part-time pharmacist in and around Star, NC. He now divides his time being a potter, fiddler, gardener, and banjo maker.
Abigail Washburn is a Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter and clawhammer banjo-player based in Nashville, TN. Pursuing her fascination with Chinese language and culture, Abigail has regularly toured China for over 20 years, including a month-long tour of China’s Silk Road supported by grants from the US Embassy, Beijing. Abigail’s musical projects range from her string band, Uncle Earl, to her bilingual releases Song of the Traveling Daughter (2005), City of Refuge (2011), to the mind-bending “chamber roots” sound of the Sparrow Quartet (featuring Béla Fleck, Casey Driessen and Ben Sollee), to Afterquake, her fundraiser album for Sichuan earthquake victims. Washburn’s most recent record with her husband, Béla Fleck, won a 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album and she was a featured collaborator on Yo-Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble’s 2017 Grammy-winning record, Sing Me Home. Washburn’s upcoming album is a collaboration with Wu Fei, a composer, singer and virtuoso of the guzheng, the ancient 21-string Chinese zither. Celebrating their bicultural sisterhood, Washburn & Wu’s banjo-zither duo seamlessly weaves together traditional Appalachian and Chinese folk tunes, with vocals in both English and Mandarin (to be released Spring 2020, Smithsonian Folkways).
In addition to her musical career, Abigail is a TED Fellow and gave a talk at the 2012 TED Convention in Long Beach titled “Building US-China Relations…by Banjo” where she told her true personal story of shifting from becoming a lawyer in Beijing, to a life-long pursuit of musical bridging. NPR voted Abigail’s 2012 commencement speech at her alma mater, Colorado College, as one of the best 300 in US history. In March of 2013, Washburn was commissioned by New York Voices and the NY Public Theater to write and debut a theatrical work, Post-American Girl, which drew from her then 17-year relationship with China and addressed themes of expanding identity, cultural relativism, pilgrimage, and the universal appeal of music. Abigail is currently a DisTIL Fellow at UNC Chapel Hill, and the first US-China Fellow at Vanderbilt University. Abigail’s efforts to share US music in China and Chinese music in the US exist within a hope of bridging hearts and minds through cross-cultural collaboration, and the universal language of music.
FAQs How can I contact the organizer with any questions?
Please advise Lantern in advance if you have dietary restriciions: RSVP Evan Hatch at evanhatch22@gmail.com
Is my registration fee or ticket transferrable? Yes
Is it ok if the name on my ticket or registration doesn’t match the person who attends? Yes
