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Find full event details and directions and other details by clicking on the links at left.

Exciting Entertainment Lineup Announced for 2012 Festival!

We are pleased to announce the full entertainment lineup for this year's festival: The Gibson Brothers, 2011 IBMA vocal group of the year, Doc Watson and Charles Welch, the Water Tower Bucket Boys, Larnell Starkey and the Spiritual Seven, Dori Freeman, and of course, Wayne Henderson and Friends.

Registration is open through April for guitarists who want to perform at the eighteenth annual Wayne C. Henderson Music Festival and Guitar Competition at Grayson Highlands State Park. The finalist will win a handmade Henderson guitar. Applications must be received by May 1. The form can be obtained by clicking on Competition Info (at left).

Held on the third Saturday in June‚ at Grayson Highlands State Park in Mouth of Wilson, VA., the Wayne C. Henderson Music Festival and Guitar Competition features some of the region’s best traditional musicians. From time to time, they have shared the stage with bluegrass bands from Europe.

The event takes its name from National Heritage Award recipient Wayne C. Henderson‚ a musician and instrument maker who lives in nearby Rugby‚ Virginia. Henderson's top-notch finger-picking is a source of great pleasure and pride to his friends, family, and neighbors in Grayson County, Virginia; his guitar playing has also been enjoyed at Carnegie Hall, in three national tours of "Masters of the Steel-String Guitar", and in seven nations of Europe, Asia and Africa.

Wayne and many of his musical friends are featured performers at the festival‚ with bluegrass and old-time music dominating the program. The Wayne C. Henderson Music Festival and Guitar Competition was established in 1995 to express appreciation for this "living legend". A portion of the proceeds from the Festival are placed into a scholarship fund to aid local young musicians in continuing their educations.