Camp Washington-Carver will begin a new musical entertainment series, Sweets and Sounds, on Saturday, Sept. 29, with the Lipzz Big Band, Charleston’s premier big band. The one-hour concert will start at 7 p.m., and is followed by homemade desserts in the Great Chestnut Lodge. The series will continue on selected Saturdays through the end of October.
The Lipzz Big Band was established in the fall of 1999. Jeff Flanagan, who is the bandleader, started recruiting a number of the top players in the West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky regions. The band fashioned its style from those of Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman and many others from that era.
The Lipzz Big Band are in demand to perform as a featured group or as a backup ensemble for other entertainers. They have played with many international singers including The Temptations, Kenny Rogers, Rita Moreno, Frank Sinatra, Jr., Juliet Prowse, The Four Tops and Three Mo’ Tenors to name a few.
Reservations are recommended, but tickets also will be sold the evening of the performance. Tickets are $10 per person for the performance and dessert.
For more information about the Sweets and Sounds musical entertainment series or to make reservations for the concert, call (304) 438-3005 or (304) 558-0220, ext. 171.
Sweets and Sounds will continue on Oct. 6, featuring Dr. Ethel Caffie-Austin of Dunbar, West Virginia’s “First Lady of Gospel Music,” and Oct. 13, with Everett Lilly and the Lilly Mountaineers of the Beckley area who specialize in bluegrass, county, southern rock and gospel music. The series concludes on Oct. 27 with the Washington Street Strutters, a Lewisburg-based band that plays Dixieland, old-style pop, blues and popular songs from the 1920s and 1930s.
A beautiful retreat listed in the National Register of Historic Places and operated by the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, Camp Washington-Carver serves as the state’s mountain cultural arts center and nurtures the cultural heritage embodied in the site since its dedication in 1942 as a 4-H and agricultural extension camp for West Virginia’s African Americans. The camp is located adjacent to Babcock State Park just off Route 60 (Midland Trail) on Route 41 South in Clifftop, Fayette County.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Its administrative offices are located at the Cultural Center in the State Capitol Complex in Charleston, which also houses the state archives and state museum. The Cultural Center is West Virginia’s official showcase for the arts. The agency also operates a network of museums and historic sites across the state. For more information about the Division’s programs, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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