The Madison County High School Guitar Club is looking for music lovers to attend its “This Is How You Can Help” benefit concert for Haiti. The concert is set for 4-11 p.m. Friday, March 19 in the MCHS auditorium and is open to all types of musical performers, the club co-leader and MCHS teacher Jackie Cullen said.

The Lions clubs of Madison and Greene counties’ “American Idol”-like Bland Music Contest is coming up. The contest provides an opportunity to young musicians to gain experience in performing before an audience and having talents judged by professionals and features elementary, middle, high school and some home school students living in Madison and Greene

The 6-foot-4, 235-pound Brightwood country gentleman wasn’t safe. And he took a dreadful fall. “I came tumbling down 22 to 25 feet,” he said. “I remember all of what happened. I landed on my back with my gun in between me and the ground. Most of the time, I pulled the gun up to me using a pull rope. That day I didn’t. I was in a hurry. Being in a hurry will get you every time.” That time it got Scott Collier in a real bad way.

Madison’s annual downtown Christmas celebration returns Dec. 5 and this year the event’s “Grinches” are nowhere is sight. Last year’s lighting problems on the traditional town Christmas tree appear licked and singer preacher Dr. Tommy Palmer is expected to return to lead the event’s community sing along, after a bad cough sidelined him from the 2008 celebration.

Dramatic recitations, group chants and nonsense sentences can be heard in the hallways of MCHS some days after class. The sounds come from the students practicing for their upcoming forensics competitions. The forensics program at MCHS has little to do with the type of scientific forensics that are often portrayed on “CSI”-style television shows. This has nothing to do with crime scenes.

For the seventh straight year, Lyra, a group of acclaimed professional Russian singers, will perform at a Madison County church. “It’s concert-quality music right here in Madison,” Mount Zion United Methodist Church member Frances Lacy said about a concert featuring Lyra the church hosts every year. “I think it’s also a wonderful opportunity for two different cultures, communities to get to know each other through music.” Lyra’s Madison performance this year is set for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Mount Zion, which is in Oak Park.

The Madison County High School Marching Band recently finished its summer camp and will publicly unveil its new Celtic-theme show at this year’s first MCHS football game, which is a benefit match-up vs. Orange County set for 7:30 p.m. Aug. 22 in Eddie Dean Stadium at MCHS.

In addition to tunes, cloggers and crafts – Graves Mountain Lodge’s annual Spring Fling festival will keep curious children captivated. The rain or shine two-day event – set for 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. this coming Saturday and Sunday, April 25 and 26 – will feature additional, more extensive tours of the Syria resort’s farm this year, according to Farm Manager Lynn Graves.

Lyra, the famed choral group from Russia, will present a concert of both religious and secular Russian music at Mount Zion United Methodist Church at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30. Lyra is a community of more than two dozen musicians, most of whom are students or graduates of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which offers the highest level of musical training in Russia. The musical program is a mix of songs and hymns from the Russian Orthodox tradition as well as folk songs and secular music from Russia’s most accomplished composers.

The Greater Love Quartet will perform 11 a.m. Aug 24 at Rochelle Christian Church.

Under different circumstances, the Grammy award-nominated bluegrass family band Cherryholmes may have been full-time Madison County residents.
“We often said if the music didn’t work out, we would just pick apples on the mountains in Syria,” said Sandy Cherryholmes – mother, mandolin-player and vocalist of the group, set to perform during a Sunday, July 20 concert at Graves Mountain Lodge in Syria.

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.”

Audiences attending the Graves Mountain Lodge Festival of Music have heard multi-instrumentalist Randy Kohrs play in a number of bands over the years. This season, it’s his turn in the spotlight. Kohrs will be leading his own band, the Lites, in two performances Thursday, May 29, to help open the Syria resort’s 16th annual bluegrass festival.