Pandemic Arts in the Blue Ridge Mountains

David Holt, a four-time Grammy award winner, plays the banjo and sings traditional mountain music.

Blue Ridge National Heritage Area

Asheville, NC (August 4, 2020) –

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everyone’s lives. In Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, where traditional folk music is a main focus of the heritage area, both musicians and their audiences have felt the loss and its impact on the music community. For local musicians, including the four-time Grammy Award winner David Holt, social distancing measures have been a transformative experience and there is still no end in site to this bleak period.

The idyllic Blue Ridge Mountains are home to many artists, such as the painter above and the musicians featured in Pandemic Arts.

Blue Ridge National Heritage Area

The new Blue Ridge NHA streaming series, Pandemic Arts, captures the stories of musicians adjusting to life without a live audience in the mountains and foothills of North Carolina. Whether they’re helping their children complete online schooling, finding new work on a farm, or taking up gardening, each episode reminds viewers that we’re all in this together. Through the melodic tunes and crystal clear sounds from mandolins, fiddles, and steel guitars, listeners are carried away by the evocative, local traditional music where they can see worlds beyond the boundaries of the mountains.

Musicians Zoe and Cloyd perform traditional music in their episode of Pandemic Arts.

Blue Ridge National Heritage Area

Pandemic Arts, produced by the Will & Deni Films for the Will & Deni McIntyre Foundation, is made possible by the generous support of Rhea Bigelow Charitable Trust, the Carlyle Adams Foundation, and Lauren and Fred Weed.

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