News

Local foundation wins grant for Appalachian roots music show

David Holt performs with Molly Tuttle, who be featured on this season's David Holt's State of Music.

By Lightning Reports, Published: August 19, 2018

The Will & Deni McIntyre Foundation has been awarded a $15,000 grant by the Community Foundation of Henderson County to help fund Season 4 of David Holt’s State of Music, an Emmy-nominated public television series distributed nationally by PBS.

“David Holt’s State of Music is proud to bring the musical heritage and beauty of our Southern mountains to a national audience,” said Will McIntyre, series producer and chairman of the Will & Deni McIntyre Foundation, which is based in Henderson County.

Shot entirely on location in southern Appalachia, David Holt's State of Music showcases young performers as well as veteran masters of traditional music.

A four-time Grammy winning host, Holt is a musician and storyteller who toured for a dozen years with the late Doc Watson. “Our series features some of the finest performers of bluegrass, folk, gospel, and roots music," he says. "Many of these musicians aren’t known to the general public: some are young, some are older but overlooked. We’re helping raise awareness of these artists by presenting them to the PBS audience.”

The first two seasons featured Rhiannon Giddens, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Wayne Henderson, the Kruger Brothers, Dom Flemons, Amythyst Kiah, Jeff Little, Alice Gerrard, Rayna Gellert, Laurelyn Dossett, the St. John AME Zion Unity Choir, Balsam Range, Josh Goforth, the Branchettes, Bryan Sutton, Mipso and the Steep Canyon Rangers.

Season 3, which will premiere in November, will present Sam Bush, Molly Tuttle, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Joe Newberry, April Verch and Jerry Douglas.

The series premiered on North Carolina Public Television in 2015. Nashville Public Television (NPT) is the presenting PBS station for David Holt’s State of Music, which is carried in nearly 90% percent of PBS markets in the United States.

In addition to the latest grant, the Community Foundation of Henderson County and its component Perry N. Rudnick Endowment Fund have supported the production of David Holt’s State of Music from its first season through previous grants to the Will & Deni McIntyre Foundation totaling $60,000.

The Community Foundation of Henderson County is a nonprofit, public charity that helps people who care make lasting contributions to causes that matter by building permanent endowments and other philanthropic funds and by being strong stewards of donors’ gifts.
The Will & Deni McIntyre Foundation is a 501(c)(3), charitable nonprofit that was established in 2009 to raise the profile of the arts and educational organizations through the creation of videos, books and photography for websites and related media. It is the prime fundraising entity for David Holt's State of Music.
To learn more about David Holt’s State of Music, visit https://www.davidholttv.org/ and follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.