'Lawn' schedule announced

The band opening this year’s Music on the Lawn series has its roots in old-time Appalachian string band traditions, but if you’re going to its June 12 concert, be prepared to hear the unexpected. The Web site for the Charlottesville-based band – Mando Mafia – says, “A typical performance might, in addition to old-time hoedown music, include calypso, reggae, rockabilly, klezmer and bluegrass, together with the occasional Finnish wedding march, Chilean sikureada, Puerto Rican or Argentine waltz and Italian polka.”

Vaughan Mairs, the five-man group’s string bassist, confirmed its eclectic nature. “We all have very wide-ranging musical tastes and interests — we find the combination of instruments we play lends itself to a wide varietty of musical styles,” he said in an Eagle phone interview. “Our interests are so varied, yet we are able to collect these and meld them together.”

(More information on the band is available on-line at www.mandomafia.com.)

Mairs said Mando Mafia was looking forward to returning to Madison to perform. The band, which dates back to 1989, played at the first-ever Music on the Lawn concert back in 2002.

That year, just a few dozen attended the free summertime concerts. But the series has grown. One concert last year even boasted a 400-plus crowd, according to Madison Vice Mayor Nancy Knighting, who also helps coordinate the annual biweekly concert series.

Knighting mentioned a few things new at the 2008 edition of the series. The Madison County High School Band Boosters will be on hand selling chips, candy, drinks, as well as ice cream, which she predicts will be a big hit on warmer evenings. (Proceeds will go to support the MCHS band.)

Plus, the Madison Inn restaurant will have a crew selling kabobs and other items. Knighting also noted that there are five downtown Madison restaurants within walking distance and that folks might want to buy some take-out food and bring to the concert along with their lawn chairs and blankets.

Knighting said today’s 2008 concert series opener will feature places to drop off canned goods for the Blue Ridge Food Pantry, which is reportedly having a particularly hard time receiving enough donations in today’s challenging economic times. “We’ll give out a special door prize to the person who brings the most cans,” Knighting said.

She encouraged folks to attend today’s concert, which is set for 6:30 p.m. in the gazebo area of the Madison County Library, as well as the other five concerts in the series. “With the price of gas being so high, this is a great opportunity to be entertained locally — you don’t have to go to Charlottesville,” she said.

In case of rain, the concerts will move from the library’s lawn to the American Legion Post 157’s meeting hall. The library is at 402 N. Main St. and the hall is at 310 Thrift Road.

Plow & Hearth annually sponsors the concerts, in cooperation with the town of Madison. Most of the bands have a bluegrass flavor and are year-to-year regulars in the series.

Downtown Madison’s 2008 Music on the Lawn concerts include:

6:30 p.m. today, Thursday, June 12 – Mando Mafia performs (there will also be a pre-concert heritage tree dedication) — Madison County Library lawn (rain location: American Legion Post 1577’s meeting hall).

6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26 – Courtney Hollow Band performs — Madison County Library lawn (rain location: American Legion Post 1577’s meeting hall).

6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 10 – Dark Hollow Band performs — Madison County Library lawn (rain location: American Legion Post 157’s meeting hall).

6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 24 – IIXO performs — Madison County Library lawn (rain location: American Legion Post 1577’s meeting hall).

6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14 – Scuffletown performs — Madison County Library lawn (rain location: American Legion Post 157’s meeting hall).

6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28 – Whiskey Rebellion performs — Madison County Library lawn (rain location: American Legion Post 1577’s meeting hall).

For information about the Music on the Lawn series, call Nancy Knighting at (540) 948-2272.

Preceding today’s Mando Mafia concert – which is set to start at 6:30 p.m. in the gazebo area in front of Madison County Library – is a special dedication ceremony for two American elm trees that were planted at the site in April. The tree dedication ceremony is set for 5 p.m.

The pair of young Princeton cultivar-type trees — purchased by MWP Supply and Mountain Lumber with support from Greenscapes Nursery and the Orange-Madison Co-Op — are specially bred to resist Dutch elm disease and are expected to live for more than a hundred years, growing to more than 60 feet tall and having a spread of more than 30 feet.

“This species was chosen for the classic V shape which, in time, will provide a beautiful and functional cathedral arch over the gazebo and unobstructed view of the library,” said Madison County Extension Agent Adam Downing. (The planting is being done by the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service and the Virginia Department of Forestry.)

“I definitely think shade will be very welcome there,” said Madison Vice Mayor Nancy Knighting, who also coordinates the Music on the Lawn series. “When we have our program there the sun is very noticeable there in the west.”

The elms join a current mix of stately, tall older trees that form a row dividing the area in front of the Madison County Library from the area in front of the Kemper Residence. The row includes, going east from North Main Street, two white pines, three white ash and an eastern red cedar.

Downing mused on how fitting planting trees near a library is. “The relationships between trees and libraries goes back to when books were first printed on paper — paper that came from a tree,” he said. “Maybe that first book was even read under the shade of a tree!”