The Blue Ridge Music Center - in partnership with the National Council for Traditional Arts (NCTA) present Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper plus special guests The Crooked Road Ramblers live in concert at The Blue Ridge Music Center's outdoor amphtheater on The Blue Ridge Parkway (Milepost 213) just south of Galax, VA, just north of Mount Airy, NC, and just east of Sparta, NC.
From an early age, Michael Cleveland heard old-time and bluegrass music at local jams and festivals near his hometown of Henryville, Ind., inspiring him to take up the fiddle at age four. Cleveland began playing professionally after he graduated from high school, first with Jeff White and later with Dale Ann Bradley and Rhonda Vincent. Since he was young, however, Cleveland had dreamed of leading his own band. In 2006, he formed Flamekeeper, a group that has won the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) “Instrumental Group of the Year” award seven times.
Cleveland’s personal accolades are numerous as well. He has been recognized 12 times as the IBMA’s “Fiddler of the Year,” was inducted into the National Fiddlers’ Hall of Fame in 2018, and in 2019, he won a Grammy for his album Tall Fiddler. In 2022, the National Endowment for the Arts named him a Heritage Fellow, the United States’ highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
This concert is sponsored by the National Council for Traditional Arts as part of its series National Treasures: A Tour of Culture Bearers in National Parks, in celebration of the 2026 United States Semiquincentennial in collaboration with the National Park Service (NPS). National Treasures showcases the nation’s most distinguished cultural ambassadors at signature National Parks throughout the American landscape. The program features recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts’ prestigious National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor awarded to folk and traditional artists.
https://www.michaelclevelandfiddle.com/
The Crooked Road Ramblers are an old-time band from Southwest Virginia, steeped in the traditional music of the Blue Ridge Mountains. You can find them performing a mixture of instrumental dance music, old ballads, and traditional country and bluegrass at notable venues across the region, including the Carter Family Fold, Albert Hash Memorial Festival, and Wayne Henderson Festival.
The band was started in 2002 by fiddler Kilby Spencer, originally from Whitetop, Virginia. Kilby has been playing old-time music most of his life, learning from his parents, Thornton and Emily Spencer.
https://crookedroadramblers.com/