Traditional Stage at First Night Raleigh Featuring Jeff Little, Wayne Henderson & Helen White

Nov. 18, 2009 - PRLog -- Raleigh, N.C. - PineCone is proud to partner with Artsplosure to ring in 2010 as part of the annual First Night Raleigh celebration, and thrilled to present a rare co-bill performance featuring Jeff Little, Wayne Henderson and Helen White at the First Presbyterian Church Sanctuary, the customary venue for the Traditional Stage at First Night. Tharrington Smith LLP sponsors the Traditional Stage.

Henderson is a renowned finger-style Appalachian guitar player who received a National Heritage Award in 1995 from the National Endowment for the Arts. Helen White is an award-winning singer, multi-instrumentalist, and composer, and one of the founders of North Carolina's Junior Appalachian Musicians program. Jeff Little is a piano player who was influenced by the stringband music traditions of the Blue Ridge.

While Henderson and White perform together periodically, it was Little and Henderson who actually grew up in the same area, Boone, Virginia, and they have played together since they were kids, though they play together less frequently these days. Little's father had a guitar shop where Henderson would often come in to fix and build guitars.

The First Night fun kicks off at 2:00 p.m. with the Children's Celebration at the NC museums of History and Natural Sciences. There will be family-friendly entertainment and arts & crafts throughout the day. Little, Henderson and White will perform four sets, the first beginning at 7 p.m. Later in the evening, the People's Procession will make its way down Fayetteville Street with the help of the Paperhand Puppet Intervention. And don't miss the Early Countdown, fireworks, evening entertainment, and acorn drop.

More details about the Traditional Stage performers are available on Pinecone's website, www.pinecone.org. To learn more about First Night Raleigh, visit www.artsplosure.org. Buttons go on sale Dec. 1 and are $9 in advance; the day of the event, it costs $12 for an adult button or $10 for buttons for children ages 6-12.

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PineCone—the Piedmont Council of Traditional Music, is a private, nonprofit, charitable membership organization dedicated to preserving, presenting and promoting traditional music, dance and other folk performing arts.