Read more on Sarah Leal Nova in an article published in the Mt. Shasta Area Newspapers:

Siskiyou County native Sarah Nova is ready to check climbing Mt. Shasta off her bucket list in June and most importantly, help raise awareness for Breast Cancer Prevention Partners to expose and eliminate the environmental causes of breast cancer.

Siskiyou County native Sarah Nova is ready to check climbing Mt. Shasta off her bucket list in June and most importantly, help raise awareness for Breast Cancer Prevention Partners to expose and eliminate the environmental causes of breast cancer.

This year marks BCPP’s 19th Climb Against the Odds, the 16th year on Mt. Shasta. Each year, one person from Siskiyou County is selected to be on the team and raise funds for the local charity.

“We’re thankful that BCPP donates the funds back to Breast Cancer Services of Siskiyou County, which in turn distributes funds through Mercy Foundation North, to assist local residents suffering from breast cancer,” explained Nova. “In the 15 years the climb has been on Mt. Shasta, climbers have raised approximately $176,000 to support local giving.”

Past local climbers have included Terry Thompson, Nancy Swift, Annie Bowles, Melinda Barnes, Anna Antonowich, Hillie Crowfoot, Karen Pautz, Paul Engstrom, Jenn Bray, Alisa Johnson, Tessa Montgomery, Brett Waite, Shalonda Gerdes, Andrea Shanti, and Heather Mason.

All of the money Nova raises will stay in Siskiyou County and helps women and their families facing breast cancer with transportation to treatments, uncovered medical expenses, counseling, and more.

Nova grew up in Yreka and is the oldest of five children. For the last 15 years, she has worked as an oncology nurse in Redding. She lives with her husband and three children in Dunsmuir.

Nova is climbing for her grandma who had breast cancer, her patients that inspire her every day and for her community.

Nova’s goal is to raise $14,179 (one dollar for every foot of Mt. Shasta) for the Climb Against the Odds fundraiser.

Donations can be made online at bit.ly/SarahClimbsShasta.

You can meet Nova at the Mt. Shasta Ski Park on Saturday March 23 to support her fundraising efforts. When you buy your lift ticket, you will have an option to make a donation to help support the fight against cancer.

Also, on the evening of March 23, you can enjoy an evening at POPS Performing Arts and Cultural Center in Dunsmuir for “A Night in the Canyon” music and food event featuring Allison Scull and Victor Martin.

Enjoy appetizers by Lunch Box Dinners, a no host bar, raffle items, and dessert auction. Tickets are $20 per person and can be purchased at Raven’s Tree located in the Mount Shasta Shopping Center or at Dunsmuir Hardware in downtown Dunsmuir. Only 60 seats are available.

Pops Performing Arts & Cultural Center is pleased to host The Scott Durbin Band on Saturday, November 17th at 7 pm. The Scott Durbin band features powerhouse blues and jazz singer Anna Repetto with Ross Perry, from Redding on drums, Nathan Sivanada, Mt Shasta resident, playing bass and newly added guitarist from L.A., Sultani Trip. The group is headed by Scott, who is a composer, arranger, keyboardist and trumpet player.  His resume includes working with Stevie Wonder in the 60’s and 70’s as well as song writing and studio work for MoTown Records in the 80’s.

Tickets will be $10 at the door.

Join The River Exchange on Oct. 6th to celebrate the river and a successful 26th annual river clean-up here at POPS Performing Arts and Cultural Center located at 5819 Sacramento Ave. This event will feature a musical performance by Champion Club from 7-9:30PM, a no-host-bar, and light snacks.

Silent auction items have been provided by local business such as: Cold Creek Inn, Shasta Mountain Guides, Golf weekend get away at Little River Inn, Patagonia, Garmin, Fire and Light, yoga sessions, Pilates classes, massages and much more. Admission is $10 at the door. All proceeds will go to the River Exchange.

For more information about the this event, or if you would like to contribute, please contact Executive Director Cassie Hansen at exec.riverexchange@gmail.com -call (530) 500-2114.

The River Exchange is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting healthy watersheds through community involvement in stewardship, restoration, and education. For more information about The River Exchange, see our website at www.riverexchange.org, and our Facebook page.

Voted Favorite Jazz Group in the Ashland 2017 Sneak Preview Readers Poll, The Ed Dunsavage Trio features Joe Cohoon on upright bass and Gary Chicken Hirsh on the drums. The trio has be playing music together for over 25 years. They will present an evening of straight ahead jazz guitar trio music at Pops, performing music from their latest recording Homage which is a tribute to many of the jazz guitar greats including, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino, Jim Hall, Pat Metheny, Barney Kessel, Charlie Byrd andothers.

Originally from the east coast, guitarist Ed Dunsavage has been performing regularly around the Pacific Northwest for 2 years. He has performed at many venues and festivals in the area including the Upper Sacramento River Jazz Festival, The Umpqua Jazz & Wine Festival, The Medford Jazz Jubille, The Newport Oregon Jazz Festival, The Britt Festival, The Craterian Theatre, The Jazz Project in Bellingham Washington, the Blue Note jazz club and The Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Ed has shared the stage with many wonderful artists including Bernadette Peters, Greta Matassa, Craig Chaquico, & Mimi Fox & Howard Alden, Dmitri Matheny and Ken Peplowski among others. Ed also is the guitar instructor at Southern Oregon University and works as artistic and education director for the Siskiyou Music Project, a non-profit, arts and education organization based in Ashland, Oregon.

Gary Chicken Hirsh on drums. Gary is a long-time resident of Ashland but is better known to many people as the original drummer for the 60s San Francisco rock group, Country Joe and the Fish. During the 60s he performed at all the major rock concerts in the U.S.A and through-out Europe. He has worked with everyone from Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia, to Pharoh Sanders and Frank Zappa. He came out of retirement twenty five years ago to perform the music that he loves, jazz!

On acoustic bass is Joe Cohoon. Joe and Ed have been playing music together for over 25 years. He worked for many years in the Portland area performing in various rock and blues groups and currently performs with Duke Street and Robbie Dacosta and has shared the stage with Chuck Redd, Ken Peplowski and Dmitri Matheny.

Wild Roots Children’s Concert “Wild Roots” is a local Siskiyou County duo playing fun and interactive music for children and families. Wild Roots originated in 2000 in Etna, California and through the years has performed for schools, camps, and community programs. Although two of the original members (Rick Perkins and Karen Arruda) are no longer with the band, the music continues with Annie Kramer on guitar and vocals, and Jerry Hamlin on percussion. A Wild Roots concert includes plenty of opportunities for kids and adults to join in the fun of singing, playing, and moving to the music.

This concert is sponsored by First 5 Siskiyou and hosted by the Dunsmuir Community Resource Center. Courtesy of First 5, books about music will be available at no cost for children 0-5. There will also be an opportunity to sign up children 0-5 for the Dolly Imagination Library, gifting a child with a book once per month for an entire year.

Pops is pleased to participate in Jazz in the Canyon 2018. We are fortunate to have Terry Robb, The Ed Dunsavage Trio, Allsion Scull & Victor Martin, Charles Valona and more. Check out Pops’ schedule here.

Ned Evett & Triple Double will be playing here at Pops Performing Arts & Cultural Center on Saturday, March 31 at 8 pm. Tickets are $10 at the door.

The son of an English professor and an opera singer, Ned Evett is one of the world’s foremost fretless guitarists, creating music that both celebrates and transcends the novelty of his instrument.

“The world’s first fretless guitar rockstar”  -Guitar Player Magazine

Born in Nashville Tennessee, Ned started playing ukelele at age 11, graduating to his first guitar at 15.  At 16, Ned got his first classical guitar and gave his first professional performance as a guitarist.

In 1984, Ned witnessed King Crimson ‘Sleepless Live in Japan’ on MTV, and was mesmerized by the fretless guitar wielded by Adrian Belew; this chance viewing would come full circle years later.

Intent upon developing a distinct style and sound on electric guitar, Ned benefited from Fulltone custom effects founder Mike Fuller working at a local guitar shop. He introduced Ned to the basic concepts of electric guitar tone, loaning him pedals and guitars to experiment with.

Ned won a college scholarship to study classical guitar, but a Michael Hedges performance in 1986 changed the course of his life; he dropped out of college to pursue songwriting and electric guitar full time. He spent the next five years traveling across the US playing six nights a week with numerous bands.

” The master of the fretless glass-necked guitar ” -USA Today

New years eve 1990, Ned had had enough of cover bands.  He smashed his strat onstage and built his first fretless guitar from the neck which survived intact. He appeared with his fretless acoustic in the May 1993 issue of Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine, then on record with Warner Brothers recording artists Built To Spill in 1994.

Relocating to San Francisco California in 1995 resulted in Ned joining the band Yellow Wood Junction, co-founded by Pandora CSO Tim Westergren, who encouraged Ned to continue growing as a producer and writer. He also met guitarist Joe Satriani. Ned’s Americana writing style began to emerge during this period, working with bay area pedal steel ace David Phillips ( Tom Waits ).

Frequent visits to the Rodin collection at the Legion of Honor Museum, just down the street from his San Francisco apartment, led to a secondary interest in sculpting.

Prior to his first European tour in 1997 backing Austin Singer/Songwriter Dirk Hamilton, he switched to a glass fingerboard; in part to keep from wearing out numerous ebony fingerboards. Ned has used glass fingerboards ever since, prompting the moniker ‘the glass guitarist’.

A project with the band Deluxe 71 prompted a move to Los Angeles California in 1998, bringing Ned into contact with producer Marvin Etzionne and singer Maria McKee. Living and recording in a bungalow owned by actor Bruce Willis, Ned incorporated the glass fretless guitar into both Americana and modern rock styles.

Moving to Boise, ID, in the fall of 2000 to raise a family and explore life off the road, Ned settled into producing a series of albums for indie label Empty Beach. Supporting each release with a limited tour, Ned continued releasing songs featuring elements of both Americana and Modern Rock.

Ned has drawn a catalogue of critical acclaim from such major national publications as USA Today, writing, “Ned Evett is the perfectly sane, and vastly entertaining master of the fretless glass-necked guitar.”

Ned made waves in 2000 with the groundbreaking release, An Introduction to Fretless Guitar. That album, along with successful albums Circus Liquor (2003), iStole (2004), Middle of the Middle (2007), and Afraid4U (2010) led to his widespread success in Europe, while also kick-starting the beginning of a loyal fan following in the U.S.

His touring history includes concerts performed in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Mexico, and Australia as well as most of the countries in western Europe.

In 2003, Ned entered and won the North American Rock Guitar Competition. In 2004 PBS Television broadcast the documentary “Driven To Play “, a film about the event which aired in all US states and parts of Canada.

Following the film’s premier, Ned began a series of tours with artists such as Jonny Lang, Eric Johnson, and George Thorogood. From October 2010 through January 2011, Ned embarked on a world tour with Grammy nominated artist Joe Satriani who says:

“Ned Evett is a monster player/writer/performer. I’ve had him on tour as a solo act, as well as with his different band lineups, and he always puts on a great performance. He has a good time with the audience, as he uses his unique personality to guide them through his music and his one-of-a-kind guitar style.”

Ned’s sixth solo album, “Treehouse” is a 14 song diary of love, loss, redemption, and the future told in Ned’s mesmerizing voice, accompanied by Ned’s trademark fretless mirrored glass and steel resonator, the “Globro” and his glass-necked electrics. The album, produced by legendary musician Adrian Belew, was released on January 3, 2012.

The highly personal material on the album evolved from a too common event in American life, job loss and economic displacement. The cycle of events described on Treehouse is not an interpretation of hard times projected by a rich entertainer or writer, but of first hand experience losing it all.

Ned’s current solo album is “Glass Guitar”, recorded live in the studio in 2016 featuring ten new tracks of fretless magic.

Ned lives in Boise, Idaho.