The Fremont Area Community Foundation will be hosting the first ever “Match Day” on Thursday, September 17! 

On “Match Day”, donors just like you who bring their Dogwood Center contributions in person to the Fremont Area Community Foundation office will have them matched dollar for dollar!! 

What a way to double the power of your money!  Mark your calendars for September 17 and show your commitment to the value of arts in Newaygo County through your donation!  Go to www.tfacf.org for specific event guidelines.

“Linwood Peel’s Tribute to The Drifters” commemerates much of the great material which is still known, sung and covered worldwide from this legendary pop and R/B group. 

Legendary singer Linwood Peel and the group perform their Drifters tribute worldwide.  Their incredible show includes all The Drifters great hits including “Under The Boardwalk”, “On Broadway”, “Save the Last Dance for Me”, “Up on the Roof”, “This Magic Moment”, “There Goes My Baby”, and more.

Linwood Peel, from New York City is among many lead singers who have led the Drifters over the past decades, but when it comes to taking the stage, Peel has established himself as a sensational performer, bringing boundless energy and charisma to the performance. 

The performance will include those Drifter classics you remember as well as a few of other songs of that memorable era. 

Main Stage.  Tickets $15. 7:30 p.m.

The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.

Join us for a great Gospel Christmas Show!  The Dixie Melody Boys are an American Southern Gospel quartet from Kinston, North Carolina.  The group includes manager and bass singer Ed O’Neal, lead vocalist Donald Morris, tenor Jonathan Price, and baritone Steven Cooper. 

O’Neal has been with the group since 1961 and has received the Marvin Norcross Award and was inducted into the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame in 2004. 

The group has had more than twenty hits in the Southern Gospel field, including “Antioch Church Choir”, “I’ll Be Living That Way”, “Don’t Point a Finger”, and “When the Son of my Life Goes Down”.  The group has released a large number of albums and numerous videos.

Opening for the Dixie Melody Boys will be The Sweetwater Gospel Singers.  The group has been together for three years and includes Dave Parker - lead, Howard Bryant - tenor, and Geoff Hepworth - bass.  The group has performed for area fundraisers, at the Great Lakes Gospel Sing and the Hallelujah Square Gospel Barn.  They have recorded two cd’s of their beautiful gospel music.

Tickets $15. 3:00 p.m.  Main Stage.

The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.

Internationally known American pianist Dan Franklin Smith will provide a program of classical solo piano works titled “Music from the Old World and the New”.  His work as a solo artist has been described as “breathtakingly beautiful…”. 

In the U.S., Smith has appeared as soloist, chamber musician and vocal accompanist at such venues as the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Cleveland Museum’s Distinguished Artist Series, and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. 

 He has also toured in Bermuda, Taiwan, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has been featured on several radio broadcasts in the U.S.  This summer he received rave reviews in a tour of Germany playing the works of German/Italian composer Busoni.

Smith is a graduate of the University of Michigan where he studied with Benning Dexter, and later in New York with the well-known concert pianist, Constance Keene.  His achievements also include a premiere recording of Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg’s piano concerto in 1999, a recording of solo piano pieces for Sveriges Radio in 2000, Swedish TV, other recital and orchestral dates in Sweden, England, Germany and France.

Tickets $15.  7:30 p.m.  Main Stage.

The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.

The Dillonaires are a family band out of Jackson, Mississippi who capture the essence of American Folk Music.  Sherman Lee (the dad) along with son Andrew John and daughter Anna Lee provide the voices and musical accompaniment served up with an unforgettable helping of down-home honest energy.  From the worn pages of an old shape-note hymnal to brand new tunes penned in the style of A.P. Carter and Hazel Dickens, they will take you on a musical journey! 

 

Wielding an impressive array of instruments the Dillonaires are as much fun to watch as they are to listen to.

 

Sherman Lee is a slide guitar and banjo player and has worked as a consultant to the filming  of “Brother, Where Art Thou”.  His harmonica workshops are among the most eagerly attended at folk festivals.

 

Andrew John has a rich baritone voice, a deft touch with the fiddle, and a capacity to write songs that sound decades older than his 21 years.

 

Anna Lee, 25, plays rhythm guitar with authority, but it’s her voice that reaches out and grabs you. 

 

Together they offer a memorable show that will echo in your ears and stay in you heart for years to come.

 

Tickets $10.  7:30 p.m.  Black Box.

 

The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.

A rare combination of singer, songwriter, storyteller, author and social activist, Tommy Sand’s praise comes from the press and fellow musicians as well as major authors and politicians.  Practicing his craft for more than 35 years, Tommy has become an integral part of the Irish folk music revival and a one-of-a-kind North Ireland native, whose music often speaks louder than violence.   

His song-writing, which draws the admiration of Nobel Poet Laureate Seamus Heaney and father of folk music, Pete Seeger, prompts respected US magazine “Sing Out” to regard Sands as “the most powerful songwriter in Ireland, if not the rest of the world.”

The band features Tommy’s children, Moya and Fionan Sands.

Tickets $10. 7:30 p.m. Black Box.

The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.

Author, entertainer, and humorist Tom Cordle will present ” Historical American Tales in Song and Humor” in the Black Box. 

His interesting life experiences and great sense of humor make Tom’s presentations so enjoyable.  With his guitar, harmonica and vocals he will lead us through Americana….with humor of course!

Tom has opened for Willie Nelson and worked for many years as a set designer for Nickolodeon.  He resides in Tellico Plains, Tennessee.

Tickets $10.  7:30 p.m.  Black Box.

The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.

Anne Kraley, accompanied by Phil Pletcher, will perform a vocal recital featuring light classical favorites by Handel, Mozart, Puccini, as well as musical theatre favorites by Bernstein, Lerner & Lowe, Andrew Lloyd Webber and more.

Anne is a classically trained soprano and has experience as a concert soloist, stage performer and as an ensemble singer.  She has performed internationally as a soloist with the Czech National Symphony, as a participant in Operafestival di Roma, and in the US with the American Singers Opera Project.

She recently performed the title role of  West Michigan Savoyards production of  Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience at Grand Rapid’s Wealthy Theater.  Other theater credits include Fiametta in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers and Edith in Pirates of Penzance, Suor Cercatrice in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, and an ensemble member of the Grand Rapid’s Civic Theater’s production of The Sound of Music.  

Anne is a graduate of Elmhurst College and works in the Marketing and Public Relations Department of the Grand Rapids Symphony.

Tickets $10. 7:30 p.m. Main Stage.

Kraley photo courtesy of Wojteck Dubrowski.

The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.

Led by guitarist/vocalist Vincent Hayes, and packing one of the tightest rhythm sections in Michigan, The Vincent Hayes Project is a high energy, experimental blues band on the rise. 

In addition to being veterans of the Michigan Blues Festival circuit, the band was one of John Sinclair’s backing bands of  “Blues Scholars” on his tour of Michigan in ‘07.  In both 2006 and 2007 they traveled to Memphis when they were chosen as 1 out of 100 blues bands in the world in the prestigious Annual International Blues Challenge on Beale Street, sponsored by The Blues Foundation in Memphis.

Vincent Hayes - Guitar and Lead Vocals, David Alves - Bass Guitar and Vocals, and Donny Hugley - Percussion.

A favorite at the Dogwood Center! 

Black Box.  Tickets $10. 7:30 p.m.

The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.

Dogwood Community Theater presents “The Dining Room” by A. R. Gurney.  Evening performances on August 7 and 8 are at 7:30 p.m. with an afternoon performance on Sunday, August 9 at 3:00 p.m. 

The play, directed by Michael Coon, is set in the dining room of a typical well-to-do household, the place where the family assembled daily for breakfast and dinner and for any and all special occasions.  The action is comprised of a mosaic of interrelated scenes…some funny, some touching, some rueful….which, taken together, create an in-depth portrait of a vanishing species:  the upper-class White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

The actors change roles, personalities and ages as they portray a wide variety of characters, from little boys to stern grandfathers, and from giggling teenage girls to Irish housemaids.  Each vignette introduces a new set of people and events that dovetail swiftly and smoothly.

Tickets $15. Main Stage.  Evening performances on August 7 and 8 are at 7:30 p.m. with an afternoon performance on Sunday, August 9 at 3:00 p.m.

The Dogwood Center Box Office is open Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and one hour prior to an event.  For information, phone 231.924.8885.