Families will gather at Wendell Elementary School at 7 p.m., Friday, May 8 for a free concert from bluegrass artist Charles Pettee.
Pettee has been leading three weeks of musical residency work in Wakelon, Wendell, and Forestville Road elementary schools. His residency activities have connected to the American history curriculum taught in fourth grade. There have been free jam sessions held in each community.
The culminating event of Pettee’s work in the schools is this concert. It will feature Pettee and his group, Chuck and the Waggin’Ears, as well as Al Batten and the Bluegrass Reunion, and Rogers and Johnson.
The students have enjoyed Pettee’s music and teaching so much that its led Forestville Road Elementary Principal Dianne Pridgen to invite him back to the school as the speaker at the school’s fifth grade graduation ceremonies.
The musical residency is a gift of the United Arts Council which presents a professional artist in a residency program in Eastern Wake County every other year.