The Music Maker Relief Foundation, dedicated to bringing music to cities around the world, is hoping to partner with Carrboro for a free concert series scheduled for Spring 2016.
The potential 10-concert series will only happen if the foundation receives the Levitt Pavilions grant. The idea of the grant is creative placemaking, which is taking an area and making it into a place where people can gather, relax and have fun with free concerts, said Vanessa Silberman, senior director of communications and strategic initiatives for Levitt.
The grant is a matching grant of up to $25,000, said Silberman.
The potential concert series in Carrboro is one of 40 applications for the grant, said Corinne Everett Belch, communications and development coordinator of the Music Maker Relief Foundation.
The applications are in the preliminary voting round currently, where the public can go online and vote for their city. In order for Carrboro to move on to the next round and be considered by a panel with Levitt Pavilions, Carrboro needs to be voted into the top 25 cities.
Carrboro has not made it into that bracket at this time, said Belch.
“It’s really critical to get as many folks on the website to vote as possible,” said Rah Trost, the recreations supervisor for Carrboro.
The concert series would consist of 10 roots music concerts. Roots music is a combination of blues, gospel, folk, zydeco and any other genres that are considered the roots of modern music. The Music Maker Foundation will dedicate this series to Libba Cotten, an important figure in roots music and in Carrboro.
The name for the event is still unknown, but “Levitt AMP Freight Train,” after Cotten’s song "Freight Train," is one idea, said Corinne.
