The Great Falls Public Library wraps up the successful Summer Music in the Park Series on Tuesday, August 27 when the group Sally Jo and Friends Blue Grass performs from 7 to 9 pm in Library Park.
Sally Jo Ratliff is a Great Falls-based bluegrass performer. Ratliff, raised in Ohio, has always been drawn deeply to bluegrass music. She grew up attending many Midwest bluegrass festivals where artists such as Bill Monroe, Stanley and the Country Gentlemen performed. Ratliff also had the opportunity to sing with many of the bluegrass acts in those festivals. She moved to Great Falls in 2005.
“Bluegrass is something I love playing and singing, and I like to share it with other people,” she once said in an interview.
For Tuesday’s performance, be sure to bring chairs and/or a blanket to sit on in the park. In the event of bad weather on Tuesday, the performance will take place in the Cordingley Room.
The Summer Music in the Park Series saw a considerable increase in crowd sizes for the 2024 season. We saw an average of 150 people attend each event, which, depending on the attendance for Tuesday’s performance, will likely be an almost 40 percent boost from 2023.
The highest-attended shows of the summer were with Supaman, who had 518 people on hand, and Pollo Loco, which saw 201 people come by Library Park.
Two performances, Joel Corda on June 18 and the Lucky Valentines on Aug. 13, were moved into the Cordingley Room due to the weather, which capped the number of people to around 100 for each of those due to space limitations. Planning is already underway for the 2025 summer series, as well.
The library offers a gigantic thank you to all of our performers, who each brought an impressive level of professionalism as artists to the table each week. We’d also like to thank our sponsors this year for helping make our Summer Music Series possible: TDS Fiber, the Great Falls Public Library Foundation, Scheels, Montana Credit Union, Bravera Bank and First Interstate Bank. Each sponsor contributed to this long-standing event in ways that made each night that much more special.
If anyone would like to perform next summer, or has suggestions for who the Library should book, you can contact Sarah Cawley at scawley@greatfallslibrary.org or call 406-453-0349.
For more information, contact Jake Sorich at jsorich@greatfallslibrary.org or
406-453-0349 ex. 220.
Author: Staff
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