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1 November 2005 Roy Clark to perform benefit concerts Dec. 16 at Longwood
The concerts are at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. in Jarman Auditorium. This is the 13th year that Clark has done a pair of concerts at Longwood, proceeds from which benefit the Department of Music. Tickets, now on sale at Jarman Box Office, are $15 balcony, $20 side and $25 center. The box office is open from 2 to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and will be open the day of the concerts for last-minute sales. To charge tickets (MasterCard and VISA are accepted) or for more information, call the box office at 395-2474. The Camerata Singers, Longwood's flagship choral ensemble, will perform several numbers with Clark. CDs and tapes of Christmas in Virginia, which he recorded with the Cameratas in 1997, will be available for sale. Clark's involvement with Longwood also includes the Roy Clark Music Scholarship, which he established in December 1995 in memory of his parents, Hester and Lillian Clark. The same month he participated in Longwood's commencement and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. "Thanks to Mr. Clark, the scholarship he established is one of the largest awarded by the Music Department," said Franklin Grant, Longwood's director of planned and major gifts. Clark, a native of Meherrin in Lunenburg County, is one of the world's finest and most popular entertainers. Described as "one pistol of a musician," he is a virtuoso performer on 12-string and acoustic guitar, banjo and fiddle, and he can "get by" on five other instruments. He also is a singer, songwriter and comedian. He has recorded a string of vocal and instrumental hits over the years, including Yesterday When I Was Young and his own 12-string version of Malaguena. Clark has performed for standing room only audiences at Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden in New York City, the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo, the Grand Palace in Brussels and the Rossiya Theatre in Moscow. His concerts have set attendance records at state fairs, festivals and conventions throughout the United States. For 25 years he hosted the TV show Hee Haw, which is syndicated nationwide and viewed by some 30 million fans every Saturday evening on The Nashville Network (TNN). Clark has received countless awards from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association, including Entertainer of the Year, Lead Guitar Player of the Year, Comedy Act of the Year, Instrumentalist of the Year and Gospel Group of the Year (with the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet) every year from 1981 to 1987. He won a Grammy in the Best Country Instrumental category in 1982 for his performance of Alabama Jubilee and was a four-time Picker of the Year in Playboy magazine's readers poll. He has achieved many "firsts" in his career. He was the first National Ambassador for U.N.I.C.E.F. and the first country music artist to guest-host The Tonight Show for Johnny Carson; headline the Montreux International Jazz Festival; and be inducted into the Las Vegas Entertainment Hall of Fame. He was among the first country music artists to sell out Madison Square Garden. His first instrument, which he played in a band at Meherrin Elementary School, was made by his late father from a cigar box, ukulele neck and four strings. At the age of 14 he received a real guitar as a Christmas gift from his parents. The next year he started performing with his father's square dance band. Clark, a longtime resident of Tulsa, Oklahoma, supports several philanthropic causes that aid young people. The annual Roy Clark Golf Tournament in Tulsa has provided more than $1 million for that city's Children's Medical Center. Other benefit concerts have raised funds for the emergency treatment center at Southside Community Hospital in Farmville, the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollenbeck Youth Center, and the sports facility at a Tennessee high school. |
Country music superstar Roy Clark and his band will perform two benefit concerts at Longwood University on Friday, Dec. 16.