Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House Performing Arts Center will present the internationally acclaimed bluegrass band Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road in concert on Saturday, April 10, at 7:30 p.m. The concert will be streamed live from the mountains of North Carolina, home of the band.

“We’re so excited to be presenting this streamed performance,” notes Opera House Executive Director Rick Davis. “Liam and the band were scheduled to perform live on our stage back in 2020, but rescheduled to this month, thinking that the COVID pandemic surely would be over by now. Since it is not and we are still closed, we accepted the band’s offer to stream the performance live from their home base of operations rather than ask them to drive 12 hours to play to an empty theatre.”

Rapidly rising on the bluegrass scene, Billboard-charting artists Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road perform internationally winning both industry awards and the hearts of fans who turn out to see them at some of the most iconic venues and festivals: MerleFest, Floyd Fest, Grey Fox, Wide Open Bluegrass, The Station Inn, and Silver Dollar City, just to name a few of the hundreds of places played over the past six years.

Named Momentum Band of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) in 2019, the group has been recognized as one of the fastest growing bands on the scene. The group’s latest release, “Roots,” debuted at #6 on the Billboard Bluegrass Album charts, and was streamed more than 30,000 times within two weeks of its release.

Purcell & Cane Mill Road has performed on national TV on PBS three times, including being featured this season on David Holt’s State of Music Show. The band’s first four albums resulted in 12 weeks total on Billboard’s Bluegrass Album chart including a #2 spot right behind Billy Strings. The band also is featured on Jim Lauderdale’s album “When Carolina Comes Home.”

Growing up just down the road from Doc Watson, Purcell leads Cane Mill Road as the group rocks the traditional bluegrass standards Purcell was raised on, yet boldly writes original music with roots in the fertile grounds of bluegrass, old-time and Americana.

Purcell is only 18, yet the multi-instrumentalist garnered two IBMA nominations for IBMA Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year, and was one of the youngest musicians selected for the Savannah Music Festival’s Acoustic Music Seminar.

The Opera House concert is a live-streamed event, which will only be presented live as it is happening. Tickets are $23 per household and can be purchased online at www.fredopera.org. A link to view the performance will be emailed to ticket-buyers an hour prior to the show’s curtain.

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House is a member-supported not-for-profit organization located in Village Hall in downtown Fredonia. Currently closed due to COVID-19 restrictions, the theatre is offering a variety of digital program offerings to continue its mission of “present the performing arts for the benefit of our community and region … and providing access to artistic diversity … and high quality programming at an affordable price.”