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Saline Fiddlers to Open for Bluegrass Legend Ricky Skaggs

Acoustic Routes Concerts has recently announced that Ricky Skaggs – a 15-time Grammy® winner and newly-inducted member of the Country Music Hall of Fame – will be live in concert at Ann Arbor’s Michigan Theater on May 25, 2019 with special guests The Saline Fiddlers Philharmonic.

“I’m looking forward to coming back to Ann Arbor again,” Skaggs said. “There is a great community of music goers in this great city. Me and my band Kentucky Thunder will be going through the encyclopedia of bluegrass music, old songs as well as new. It’ll be a great show.”

Ricky Skaggs and The Saline Fiddlers, who will open the show, are a natural pairing. Skaggs struck his first chords on a mandolin over 50 years ago, and today he leads the revival in roots music. He has made it his mission to introduce a new generation of listeners to bluegrass and traditional American music – a goal shared by The Fiddlers, one of the country’s premier youth fiddle show bands. The concert, which is a benefit for The Fiddlers, is one of the major events planned for their 25th anniversary year.

Tickets for the event go on sale via Ticketmaster.com or by phone (800-745-3000) on Dec. 10 at 8 a.m. Most seats are $45 or $65. A limited number of Gold Circle tickets are available for $150, which includes a tax-deductible contribution of $85 to the Saline Fiddlers.

“When Saline High’s Bob Phillips started The Fiddlers, it was a revolutionary idea in music education that cut across the grain of popular culture,” said Jim Cain, the founder of Acoustic Routes, which is based in Saline. “Bob knew that high school student-musicians, armed with fiddles, cellos, basses and guitars, would thrill audiences but the group has done so much more. Over 25 years, they helped launch the careers of professional musicians like Jeremy Kittel and Brad Phillips, they have performed at the White House and the Kennedy Center, and toured across North America and Europe. Now they’re taking the stage with the legendary Ricky Skaggs. It’s going to be an epic night.”