The 2024-25 season lineup at Wilkes Community College’s John A. Walker Community Center has been announced, featuring a wide range of music and other entertainment.
In addition to six shows in the Walker Center’s 1,100-seat Nan Van Every Auditorium, five evenings of entertainment with dinner in the Walker Center’s 5,100-square-foot Lakey Ballroom are planned.
A Walker Center spokesman said 2024-25 promises to be one of the venue’s best seasons yet.
Season ticket renewals for all six Walker Center auditorium shows began June 6 and will be sold through June 20. New season tickets for all six auditorium shows and separate season tickets for all five events in the new Lakey Ballroom Series are on sale June 26 to July 10.
Tickets for individual shows in the Walker Center auditorium series and for individual events in the Lakey Ballroom series go on sale on July 15.
The six shows in Nan Van Every Auditorium, all starting at 7:30 p.m., feature:
• singer Lee Greenwood, Thursday, Sept. 19, sponsored by Carolina West Wireless;
• “Sun Records Live – The Official Concert,” Saturday, Oct. 5, sponsored by Piedmont Federal Savings Bank;
• “Direct From Sweden – The Music of ABBA,” Thursday, Nov. 21, sponsored by Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn Express of Wilkesboro;
• “Grand Ol’ Christmas Show,” Thursday, Dec. 19, sponsored by Carolina West Wireless;
• Catapult dance troupe, Friday, March 28;
• “Equinox Jazz Orchestra – Beatles to Bourbon Street,” Friday, June 6, sponsored by Skyline National Bank.
Events in the Lakey Ballroom Series, all with dinner, include:
• Presley Barker/donor recognition: Saturday, Aug. 25, sponsored by Best Image Signs;
• Murder Mystery “Cruisin’ for Clues,” Saturday, Sept. 28, sponsored by Midtown Market & Garden;
• Steve Brogan, ventriloquist, Friday, Jan. 31;
• Salsa dance lesson, Saturday, March 8, 2025, sponsored by Carolina Realty ERA Live Moore;
• Grape Stompin’/Family Style Dinner/Watson Stage with music, Friday, June 20, sponsored by Old Barn Winery.
More details in shows in the Walker Center auditorium are:
With seven No. 1 songs and 25 charted singles, Lee Greenwood has found success in choosing his songs. He is best known for “God Bless the USA,” which Greenwood wrote in the back of a tour bus in 1983. It is the only song to be in the top five on the country singles charts three times (1991, 2001, 2003). It reached #1 on the pop charts after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. CBS News voted “God Bless The USA” the most recognizable patriotic song in America.
Greenwood’s country music hits include “It Turns Me Inside Out,” “Ring On Her Finger Time On Her Hands,” “She’s Lying,” “I Don’t Mind the Thorns If You’re The Rose,” “Dixie Road,” “Somebody’s Gonna Love You,” “Going, Going, Gone,” “You Got A Good Love Comin,” “Fools Gold,” and “Mornin’ Ride,” He has had several crossover hits, such as “Touch & Go Crazy,” “IOU” and a duet with Barbara Mandrell for “To Me.”
“Sun Records Live – The Official Concert”
“Sun Records Live – The Official Concert” celebrates Sun Records, a record label that helped launch rock n’ roll by first recording the music of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and others. It includes performances of many of the songs Sun Records helped make famous, such as “Great Balls of Fire,” “Hound Dog,” “Pretty Woman,” “That’s All Right,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “I Walk The Line,” “Ring of Fire,” “Whole Lotta Shaking Goin’ On” and “Jailhouse Rock.”
Produced by Gershwin Entertainment in association with Sun Records/Primary Wave Entertainment, “Sun Records Live – The Official Concert” brings the stars and multi-talented musicians from the successful national tour of “Million Dollar Quartet” together on stage to honoring Sun Sound, founded by Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tenn., in 1952, and its artists.
“Direct From Sweden – The Music of ABBA”
“Direct From Sweden – The Music of ABBA” uses costumes, make-up, musical arrangements, movements and singing to replicate the look and sound of the Swedish pop supergroup, ABBA, formed in Stockholm in 1972.
With a live band and backup singers, this show features many of ABBA’s greatest hits from the 1970s such as “Dancing Queen,” “Waterloo,” “Mamma Mia,” “Money, Money, Money,” “Take a Chance on Me,” “Gimmie! Gimmie! Gimmie!” and more.
“Grand Ol’ Christmas Show”
The Grand Ol’ Christmas Show started as a one-night-only fundraiser for the Brazoria County Youth Home. It was a surprise hit, drew standing-room crowds in repeat performances and eventually was taken to audiences beyond Texas. This one-of-a-kind musical variety show brings all-time favorite Christmas classics and original sketch comedy antics.
Made for music and comedy lovers from boomers to millennials, this tribute to American Christmas traditions cleverly and progressively blurs the lines between heartfelt nostalgia and contemporary pop-culture satire. It’s produced by Will Hearn and presented by The Grand Ol’ Production Company.
Catapult is an art and dance troupe from Connecticut that has performed around the world, including as a finalist in season eight of “America’s Got Talent” in 2013. The dancers work behind a screen to create silhouettes of all sorts of shapes, combining dance, theater and sculpture while telling cinematic stories full of color and emotion.
“Catapult is a shadow illusion dance company. There’s nothing really like us,” said Adam Battelstein, who founded Catapult in 2009. “We tell stories using music and dance and shadow illusion.” With the arc of an arm, the point of a toe or a twist of a torso, these dancers stretch their bodies and transform into silhouettes of everything from dogs and dragons to bicycles and helicopters with people in them.
“Equinox Jazz Orchestra – Beatles to Bourbon Street”
Fashioned in the style and swagger of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. and with influences from Harry Connick Jr. and Michael Buble, this high-energy show by Jeremy Davis and Clay Johnson features the music of the Beatles and original songs with influences from their home state of Louisiana.
“Equinox Jazz Orchestra – Beatles to Bourbon Street” also includes a dash of Motown, a shot of country and some folk and rock sprinkled on top, with the stories behind them. This “original” Walker Center street parade will close out the 2024-25 season.
For more information or to purchase tickets, contact the Walker Center box office at 336-838-6260 or go to www.walkercenteronline.org.
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