Events

Hosting multiple events and exhibitions throughout the year, CCSA is the heart of happenings in downtown Galax. Need a place to celebrate? Our Historic Building is the perfect venue for small receptions, showcases, meetings, events, and exhibits. We would love to host your event!

Thursday, August 8, 2019

Old Fiddler’s Convention CCSA Musical Showcase
The Wildmans

Thursday, August 8, 2019
1-2:30pm
CCSA Main Campus
100 North Main St
Galax, VA 24333

The up and coming Neo traditional stringband The Wildmans features the award winning talents of siblings Eli and Aila Wildman on mandolin, fiddle and vocals, joined by gifted banjoist Victor Furtado.  All three have won some of the most respected top awards in the old time Appalachian music – at 2018 Galax Old Fiddler’s Convention Eli and Aila Wildman each won first place in Mandolin and Old time Fiddle, and Aila also won the Best All Around Performer Award.  Victor’s awards, too numerous to mention, are highlighted by first in Old Time Banjo at Galax and Clifftop in 2015 and 2016.  This season the group is very excited to add the talents of Sean Newman (of the Dharma Bombs) on upright bass and vocals.

Highly skilled instrumentals and soulful vocals applied to traditional and original tunes with a smattering of old time, blues, and jazz combine to create a fresh new sound – old tunes fueled by young spirit.

With a base firmly in old-time roots music, The Wildmans push the genre boundaries with acoustic electric instruments and effects to create a bigger sound, with original jam vibes, modern classics and jazz standards, Tedeschi Trucks, Bob Dylan, and Prince covers, alongside our favorite old time and original fiddle tunes.

The band has shared the stage with bands such as Sam Reider & the Human Hands, Jon Stickley, Billy Strings, The Steep Canyon Rangers, and The Steel Wheels.  Festivals include Floyd Fest, Rooster Walk, Red Wing Roots, Grey Fox, and Mountain Song, among others.

The group is based in Floyd, Virginia, a town famous for its’ old time and bluegrass music heritage, with a weekly Friday night jamboree that has been active for over 75 years.

Website

Friday, August 9, 2019

Old Fiddler’s Convention CCSA Musical Showcase
Willard Gayheart, Dori Freeman, & Scott Freeman

Friday, August 9, 2019
1-2:30pm
CCSA Main Campus
100 North Main St
Galax, VA 24333

Folk music in Appalachia is usually a family affair, handed down from father to son, mother to daughter, shared via backyard parties, kitchen jam sessions, or old-time fiddler conventions. For breakout Americana star Dori Freeman, this is the world she grew up in, singing old songs with her father Scott Freeman and her grandfather Willard Gayheart. It was in this spirit that all three of them gathered in the frame shop that Willard owns near Galax, Virginia, along with producer Teddy Thompson, New York recording engineer and producer Ed Haber (Linda Thompson, WNYC), and Dori’s husband Nick Falk, to record an album of Willard’s originals and favorite songs. The resulting album, At Home in the Blue Ridge, coming May 24, 2019 on Blue Hens Music, is Willard Gayheart’s first solo album, an “about time!” moment in his 87 years. Over two days, the family gathered to play Willard’s songs, crowding around mics and recording everything live. When a customer came into the shop looking for a frame or one of Willard’s original pencil drawings (he’s an internationally renowned pencil artist known for his bucolic drawings of the region), Willard would get up from the recording to go help them out. This isn’t music made for stages, or made for commerce, it’s music made for family, for sharing a common experience. “It was a special thing to get to do,” Dori explains. “I’ve been picking with him and my dad for a long time, since I was a teenager, but hadn’t recorded anything like that with both of them. Plus it was great to get to work with a lot of originals that he had written over the years.”
Source

Every single star is Dori Freeman’s upcoming third album and will be released september 27, 2019. Like her first two albums, Dori Freeman and Letters Never Read, the album was produced by teddy thompson, and contains 10 new original songs. The album was recorded and mixed by Sam Evian in Brooklyn in December of 2018 and features musical contributions from Thompson, Nick Falk, Zak Hobbs, Richard Hammond, Eric Finland and Alex Hargreaves. The album can be preordered at https://music.apple.com/us/album/every-single-star/1473024116

www.chestnutcreekarts.org | 276.236.3500

May 28-30, 2019

VCA Project Grant | Interactive Mural with Nikki Pynn

CCSA Pottery Studio
110 East Oldtown Street
Galax, VA 24333

CCSA has received a grant to create an interactive mural in our main building. One of the elements will be re-positionable pottery leaves which we will be making at the pottery studio. The leaves will be an interactive element around a stained glass tree on a wall on our first floor.We need the community’s help in creating enough of these pottery leaves. Please plan to join us at the pottery studio!

Dates: Tuesday, May 28,
Wednesday, May 29, & Thursday, May 30
Times: 10am-12pm & 1-5pm

There is no charge and our mural artist, Nikki Pynn will be there to facilitate and assist you.

Even if you’ve never worked in clay, we’d love to see you there! Get your hands dirty and play in the clay!

www.chestnutcreekarts.org | 276.236.3500

Saturday, June 22, 2019

Summer Solstice Plein Air Day at Stonefarm

Stonefarm
1495 Comers Rock Road | Elk Creek, VA 24326
Saturday, June 22, 2019 | 10am-3pm
Rain or Shine

Join us on Summer Solstice at Stonefarm in Elk Creek for a Plein Air Event!

Bring your travel supplies and scope out a beautiful spot to paint for the day. Lunch will be provided. At the end of the day there will be a reception, judging of the day’s work for prize money and an opportunity to sell your “wet” paintings.  If you would like to bring additional original work to sell, you are welcome to do so. The artist is responsible for the sales of extra work brought.
Chestnut Creek School of the Arts will collect 25% of each sale from the “wet paintings” and asks for 25% of all other sales during the event.

Schedule of Events for June 22, 2019
10am- 2pm with Reception to follow.
Soup and bread provided for lunch.
Art judged and prizes awarded at 3pm

1st place $500
2nd place $300 
3rd place $200

Total prize money $1000

This event is open to the public to come watch artists as they paint scenes of the day as they see them and to purchase paintings of the day.

Founded by Jeremiah Stone circa 1760, Stonefarm is now entering it ninth generation in the Stone family. Held in a conservation trust, the farm’s gentle rolling pastures and forest land sit in the middle of the Elk Creek Valley, with Point Lookout to the south and Iron Mountain to the north.

Theresa Stone Lazo, the 7th generation to live on the farm, and her husband Robert, live in the farmhouse built by Theresa’s great grandfather, Chrisman Stone, in 1886. The house is adorned with the family’s extensive contemporary and classical art collection, which painters and visitors are encouraged to tour.

Saturday, April 27, 2019

10-iversary, Bank on the Arts, Gala

Chestnut Creek School of the Arts
100 N Main Street | Galax, VA 24333
Saturday, April 27, 2019 | 6-9pm

Save the date for our big 10!  This will be the event of the year with our annual silent art auction, 3rd annual bench project, and celebration of the 10 years we have served our community. We would love for you to contribute in any way you can, whether its donating a piece of art, making a piece for the bench project, volunteering your time to decorate, or attending as our guest. Our 10-iversary is all about our history and how much we have grown over the years, and what our future holds as we continue to grow. Bring out the bling for the metallic and sparkling themed gala, we can’t wait to celebrate with you!