VIRGINIA ARTS FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES Williamsburg Live Music Festival June 21-2

The Lawn of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg

Two iconic singers, one unforgettable weekend! The Virginia Arts Festival announces its new Williamsburg summer music event, Williamsburg Live June 21 – 22 on The Lawn of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. Headlining the weekend will be two singers who define American music: Grammy winner, singer, songwriter and pianist Norah Jones performs Friday, June 21, and Country Music Hall of Fame member Emmylou Harris, who boasts 14 Grammy Awards, three CMA Awards, and four Americana Awards, will headline Saturday, June 22. Americana duo Mandolin Orange will open for Emmylou Harris on Saturday.

Williamsburg Live offers a unique beautiful setting for an intimate music festival experience designed to appeal to all the senses. Shaded by centuries-old trees, The Lawn of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg is surrounded by history – the perfect spot to enjoy great music, delicious local food truck fare, and local and regional craft beers and wines. As the sun goes down and the stars come out, there’s no better place to rediscover your favorite musical artists among friends and family.

Williamsburg Live steps in to replace Bruce Hornsby’s Funhouse Fest which began in 2016 when Virginia Arts Festival director Rob Cross asked Bruce Hornsby to perform at its 20th anniversary celebration. In response, Hornsby said he was interested in collaborating to put together a curated series of concerts. Funhouse Fest ran for three years 2016-2018 and brought in headliners including Alison Krauss, Sheryl Crow and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra String Quartet to the city. The event was put on hold because because Hornsby, who has curated the lineup and performed at the festival in past years, is spending 2019 working on new projects.

FRIDAY, JUNE 21
Gates open at 6:00pm
Opening act to be announced – 7:30pm
Norah Jones – 9:00pm

SATURDAY, JUNE 22
Gates open at 5:30pm
Mandolin Orange – 7:00pm
Emmylou Harris – 9:00pm

Tickets for Williamsburg Live go on sale Friday, February 22 and will be available online at www.vafest.org

Colonial Williamsburg Hotels will offer special Williamsburg Live hotel packages. Please visit colonialwilliamsburghotels.com or call 1-877-568-8225 for more information.

About Norah Jones
Norah Jones first emerged on the world stage with the February 2002 release of Come Away With Me, her self-described “moody little record” that introduced a singular new voice and grew into a global phenomenon, sweeping the 2003 Grammy Awards and signaling a paradigm shift away from the prevailing pop music of the time. Since then, Norah has sold 50 million albums worldwide and become a 9-time GRAMMY-winner. She has released a series of critically acclaimed and commercially successful solo albums—Feels Like Home (2004), Not Too Late (2007), The Fall (2009), Little Broken Hearts (2012), and Day Breaks (2016)—as well as albums with her collective bands The Little Willies and Puss N Boots. The 2010 compilation …Featuring Norah Jones showcased her versatility by collecting her collaborations with artists as diverse as Willie Nelson, Outkast, Herbie Hancock, and Foo Fighters. Little Broken Hearts, produced by Danger Mouse, was a fascinating step in the artistic evolution of one of the music world’s most consistently intriguing singer-songwriters. With her 2016 recording Day Breaks, Norah returned to her jazz roots while also proving her to be this era’s quintessential American artist, the purveyor of an unmistakably unique sound that weaves together the threads of several bedrock styles of American music: country, folk, rock, soul, jazz. Most recently, Jones has released a series of eclectic singles including collaborations with artists and friends such as Jeff Tweedy and Thomas Bartlett.

About Emmylou Harris
A 14-time Grammy winner and Billboard Century Award recipient, Emmylou Harris’ contribution as a singer and songwriter spans 40 years. She has recorded more than 25 albums and has lent her talents to countless fellow artists’ recordings. Harris was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008 and earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 2018.

Harris is known as much for her eloquently straightforward songwriting as for her incomparably expressive singing.  Admired through her career for her talent as an artist and song connoisseur, Harris shook up country radio in the 1970s, and established herself as the premiere songwriter of a generation selling more than 15 million records and garnering 14 Grammy Awards, three CMA Awards, and four Americana Awards.  She has recorded with such diverse artists as Linda Ronstadt, Daniel Lanois, Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfler, Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Roy Orbison, Ryan Adams, Beck, Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash, Lucinda Williams, Lyle Lovett and Rodney Crowell.

About Mandolin Orange

Americana duo Mandolin Orange features singer-songwriter Andrew Marlin and multi-instrumentalist Emily Frantz.  The North Carolina pair combines guitar, banjo, fiddle, and mandolin with close harmonies and bittersweet melodies. Mandolin Orange’s music radiates mysterious warmth —their songs feel like whispered secrets, one hand cupped to your ear. Their latest album Tides of A Teardrop is the duo’s fullest, richest, and most personal effort. You can hear the air between them—the taut space of shared understanding, as palpable as a magnetic field, that makes their music sound like two halves of an endlessly completing thought. “Mandolin Orange is a slow-burning, steadily rising folk duo…they’ve mastered a largely acoustic sound that exudes gentle elegance.” – NPR

Co-presented with the City of Williamsburg, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and in partnership with Visit Williamsburg. Funded in part by the City of Williamsburg and the Williamsburg Area Arts Commission.

Williamsburg Live is funded in part by Virginia is for Lovers marketing leverage program presented by Virginia Tourism Corporation. 

About the Virginia Arts Festival
Since 1997, the Virginia Arts Festival has transformed the cultural scene in southeastern Virginia, presenting great performers from around the world to local audiences and making this historic, recreation-rich region a cultural destination for visitors from across the United States and around the world. The Festival has presented numerous U.S. and regional premieres, and regularly commissions new works of music, dance, and theater from some of today’s most influential composers, choreographers, and playwrights. The Festival’s arts education programs reach tens of thousands of area schoolchildren each year through student matinees, in-school performances, artists’ residencies, master classes and demonstrations.   

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