Tickets

This concert will celebrate selected symphonic programs and soloists from The Festival's first twenty five years, including Strauss' "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" from the first Festival concert at Memorial Field in 1983, and Bach's Concerto for Two Violins with Jason Moody and Kelly Farris.

Moody was first inspired to play the violin at age 5 when his parents took him to The Festival where he saw Farris performing as Concertmaster with the Spokane Symphony. The evening will open with Glinka's "Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla" from Gary Sheldon's first season in 1999, followed by selections from composer Leroy Anderson, and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with pianist Greta Beggs. The second half of the program will feature Broadway favorites with local soloists and The Festival at Sandpoint Chorus directed by Rob Kincaid. Fireworks will accompany an encore performance of Neil Diamond's "America" from the very first Grand Finale program.

On Friday, August 4, the Festival presents the first of its two "PHAT PHRIDAY!" shows. Debuting at last year's Festival and back by popular demand, "Phat Phriday" is a double-header concert evening with shows at 7:00pm and 9:00pm featuring the best in progressive alternative music. Singer/Songwriter LEROY BELL has built a strong reputation and a national fan base with the release Two Sides to Every Story. With the hopes of youth, love, lost love, and optimism for humanity, Bell speaks through his personal observations and musical lyricism, delivering poignant songs of passion and peace. His first passion as a drummer gives his guitar playing a unique position in his music, providing a constant background of soul for his music. Bell is joined by "His Only Friends," a band of veteran musicians teeming with multi-instrumental virtuosity. Before surfacing as a performer himself, Bell penned hit songs with Casey James and his uncle Thom Bell for other performers including Elton John, the OJays, The Temptations, The Spinners, and Rita Marley.

LeRoy Bell & His Only Friends

As one of the most requested performers by Festival fans, blues rocker JONNY LANG'S performance in Sandpoint has been a long time coming. The Grammy Award winning former prodigy instrumentalist, who topped the Billboard New Artist chart with this first major-label album Lie to Me at age 15, stands now at 26 as a mature creative force, made more sensitive yet also toughened by life's adventures. Born in Fargo, North Dakota, Lang's career started at age 12 when he attended a show by the Bad Medicine Blues Band, began playing with them, and soon became the group's leader under the new name of Kid Jonny Lang & the Big Bang. He speaks to us with his sultry, soulful voice and also with his guitar in the language of deep blues and searing rock & roll, easily ranging from barnburners to ballads. He considers his latest release, Turn Around, a pivotal passage that links the triumphs of his past to the promise of his future. "Every record I've done has felt progressively more and more like the real me," he says. Come see the real Jonny Lang! Tickets are $44.95, concert starts at 7:00 PM.

Jonny Lang

August 4 is "Super S.R.O. Saturday" and we are indeed anticipating "standing room only" for one of the most popular performers of the Festival's first twenty five years. LYLE LOVETT returns to Sandpoint this summer with his Large Band after piquing local interest with his first Festival appearance in 1993. Lovett is a singer-songwriter who bounds across genres and is one of the most revered musicians of his time. Over the course of his career, he has won four Grammy Awards, including Best Country Album in 1996 for The Road to Ensenada, Best Country Duo/Group for the 1994 hit "Blues for Dixie" with Asleep at the Wheel, Best Pop Vocal Collaboration with Al Green in 1994, and Best Country Male Vocal in 1989 for Lyle Lovett and his Large Band. The Texas-born singer/songwriter's appeal has lasted nearly two decades thanks to his many critically acclaimed Gold albums, and has spawned an acting career as well with several movie credits to his name.

Lyle Lovett

Opening for him is BEARFOOT, a young Indie acoustic band of five from Alaska that plays bluegrass, Americana and roots music, featuring the fresh yet vintage sound of lead vocalist and songwriter Annalisa Tornfelt. After winning the 2001 Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Contest for amateurs, the band realized that they had the opportunity to play professionally, as other Telluride band contest alumni, the Dixie Chicks (1991) and Nickel Creek (1995) had done. Their first CD Only Time Knows debuted in 2001, followed by Back Home, with Grammy Award winning producer Todd Phillips. Their latest effort Follow Me, released this year, is a venture into the world of acoustic Americana, with a majority of original songs exhibiting exceptional musicianship and a unique blend of male and female vocals with each member taking a turn singing lead. All tickets are $54.95. Gates will open at 4:30PM.

Bearfoot

Thursday, August 10 five hard-playing Texans whose roots are in Idaho and Oregon. RECKLESS KELLY is a band named for the 19th century Australian bank robber Ned Kelly. Founding members and brothers Willy and Cody Braun, were raised with music in their veins under the tutelage of their father Muzzie Braun and the Boys (including other members of the musical Braun clan), starting their first band in high school. They left the Pacific Northwest to set the Austin music scene on fire and succeeded as the Austin Chronicle named them the "Best Roots Rock Band" three years in a row. After some self-released and live albums, they released Under the Table and Above the Sun on Sugar Hill records in 2003.

Reckless Kelly

Headlining the show is the man known as the King of the Texas Music Scene, ROBERT EARL KEEN. Among the large contingent of talented songwriters who emerged in Texas in the 1980s and 90s, Robert Earl Keen struck an unusual balance between sensitive story-portraits and raucous barroom fun. These two song types were unified by a mordant sense of humor that strongly influenced the early practitioners of what would become known as alternative country music. Keen wrote poetry in high school but it wasn't until he went to journalism school at Texas A & M that he learned to play the guitar. He and Lyle Lovett became friends there and co-wrote the song "This Old Porch," which both later recorded.His wildly popular live shows featuring such favorites as "The Road Goes on Forever," "Gringo Honeymoon" and "Merry Christmas from the Family" are widely known, thanks to a touring schedule that often approached 200 dates a year in the 1990s. His 2005 release, What I Really Mean, displays an increased depth and control that keeps audiences coming back for more. There is a complimentary microbrew tasting prior to the concert, starting when the gates open at 6:00pm, for ticket holders over the age of 21. All tickets are $29.95, concert starts at 7:30pm

Robert Earl Keen

Friday, August 10, the Festival presents its second PHAT PHRIDAY! show, another double-header concert evening with shows at 7:00pm and 9:00pm featuring the best in progressive alternative rock music. JACKIE GREENE is back by popular demand to celebrate The Festival's 25th anniversary, after opening for David Gray last year to a standing ovation. Greene embraces folk, blues and country music, and, with a voice that is big and casually seductive, he casts a spell reminiscent of his musical heroes Bob Dylan and Tom Waits. An accomplished musician on acoustic and electric guitar, harmonica, piano and Hammond B-3 organ, his admirers range from pre-teen kids to older heritage fans that came of age in the 60s and 70s.Born in Monterey, California, Greene taught himself to play the piano and guitar and started playing in public at age 16, progressing quickly from performing in local coffee houses to his first self-produced CD.

His star continues to rise after the 2002 release of Gone Wanderin' which won the California Music Award for "Best Blues/Roots Album" and led to national tours with B.B. King, John Hiatt, George Thorogood, Jonny Lang and Taj Mahal. He followed with increasingly impressive efforts in 2004 with Sweet Somewhere Bound featuring the popular radio hit "Honey I Been Thinking About You" and American Myth in 2006.

August 12 is SUPER "SILVER CELEBRATION" SATURDAY, a tribute to the bright future of the Festival and of two musical stars who are quickly on the rise. Singer/Songwriter JOSH RITTER was a major star in Ireland before anyone in the U.S. even knew he had a record out. He discovered music late in his teenage years when he found a copy of Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline at a shop in his hometown of Moscow, Idaho. When he played the Dylan/Johnny Cash duet of "Girl from the North Country," he was inspired to pick up a guitar, explaining that "hearing" that record the first time was like meeting that person you know you're going to marry." He thought he'd follow his parents into neuroscience at Oberlin College, but soon switched to a curriculum studying the history of folk music.

He headed back East to play in coffee houses, following in the foot steps of musicians he admired. At an "open mike night" in Boston he was noticed by the Frames, an Irish band that brought him back to Ireland to open for them, and word of his success soon spread back across the ocean to the states and an ever-growing fan base. Although he spends long stretches on the road, following his most recent release The Animal Years, he still comes home to relax at his home in rural Idaho.

The Festival season culminates on Sunday, August 12 with the GRAND FINALE CONCERT: MARK O'CONNOR with the SPOKANE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA conducted by GARY SHELDON." Mark O'Connor has been described by the Los Angeles Times as an artist who is "one of the most talented and imaginative…working in music - any music - today." The Baltimore Sun simply label him a "genius." O'Connor's musical journey is certainly one of the most exciting, innovative and spectacular in recent American music. He is equally impressive playing a complex sophisticated piece of classical music, or knocking 'em dead with the brown-dirt whine of a Texas fiddle. A product of America's rich aural folk tradition, his journey began at the feet of violin masters Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson and French Jazz violinist Stephane Grapelli. Since then, the Los Angeles Times warmly noted, "he has crossed over so many boundaries, that his style is purely personal." Both Yo-Yo Ma and Wynton Marsalis were guests on his 1997 album Liberty! He has composed music for Presidential inaugurations, the Olympic Games, feature films, and is often featured on television including PBS's "Great Performances," "CBS Sunday Morning" and the "Kennedy Center Honors."

Mr. O'Connor will perform his Fiddle Concerto, Appalachian Waltz and Fanfare for the Volunteer. In keeping with an Americana theme, the Spokane Symphony Orchestra will start the evening with Ives' Variations on "America," Schuman's New England Tryptick, Grofe's "On the Trail" from Grand Canyon Suite, and a Suite from Copland's Rodeo including "Buckaroo Holliday," "Corral Nocturne," "Saturday Night Waltz," and "Hoedown." The Fireworks finale will cap the celebration of the The Festival at Sandpoint's 25th concert series. This concert also serves as part of The Festival's 5th Grade Music Outreach Program, an educational mission that takes place in all Bonner County and Boundary County elementary schools this month. Each fifth grader receives complimentary tickets for themselves and two family members to attend a symphonic Festival concert.

The recipient of the Festival's Coldwater Creek Music Scholarship will perform at Intermission, and the winner of the original 2007 poster artwork by Janene Grende will be announced. Gates open early at 4:30pm for the annual "Taste of the Stars" Wine Tasting featuring premier wineries of the Northwest and an art auction presented by Timberstand Gallery. The wine tasting is complimentary for all concert goers over the age of 21 years. Concert Tickets are $34.95 for adults, $10.95 for youth 0 - 18 years.