Can’t wait for summer to get your Augusta vocal fix? Welcome to the Spring Sing! Join Ginny Hawker, Val Mindel, Dudley Connell, Sally Love and Emily Miller for an unforgettable singing experience. Located at Blackwater Falls State Park, there couldn’t be a more picturesque landscape to accompany beautiful harmonies. Study with masters of old-time, bluegrass, and classic country in an intimate and personal setting.
Events begin at 7 pm on Thursday, April 18, and culminate at noon on Sunday, April 21.
Your purchase here covers tuition for classes, as well as entry into all concerts, jams and cultural sessions. If you would like to purchase a meal ticket (breakfasts, lunches and dinners while at the event) you can add that to your registration. The Smokehouse Restaurant will be open if you would like to purchase meals a la carte.
*To make room reservations at the Blackwater Falls State Park Lodge, please call (304) 259-5216*
Cancellation Policy – All cancellations made more than one month prior to the event (before March 18, 2024) are 95% refundable. All cancellations made between one month and one week of the event (March 18 through April 11, 2024) are 70% refundable. All cancellations made within one week leading up to the event (from April 12 through April 17, 2024) are 45% refundable. Cancellations made after the start of the event, including no-call no-shows, are nonrefundable. Purchase is valid for Spring Sing 2024 only. AHC reserves the right to evaluate all cancellations on an individual basis.
Blackwater Falls Lodge room cancellation policy may differ. Please contact Blackwater Falls Lodge directly for the most up-to-date information.
Scholarship Application (awards up to $320 of tuition): click here to apply for a scholarship
**To make room reservations at the Blackwater Falls State Park Lodge, please call (304) 259-5216**
Workshop schedule coming soon!
Meet your Instructors:
Ginny Hawker is a mainstay at Augusta and has been the coordinator of Classic Country Week since it began in 2009, then known as Early Country Music Week. Emmylou Harris said Ginny Hawker is “real as dirt – she sings from the heart” when she chose Ginny’s CD, Letters From My Father as a favorite in Oprah magazine. That’s the only way Ginny knows how to sing – the way she learned to sing from her father, Ben Hawker. She and her dad taught at Augusta Vocal Week for 10 years and traveled to the Smithsonian, Vancouver, and Chicago to perform at festivals and teach workshops. Whenever Ginny sings, she makes the song sound like a classic you had forgotten about, while at the same time, making it sound so effortless that anyone could do the same. That’s what makes her a good teacher. Ginny will touch your heart and draw you into her world with her singing. She has taught at music camps for 25 years, as well as singing workshops in her home for the past 10 years. Ginny has recorded with Kay Justice and with her husband, Tracy Schwarz. She has two solo CDs on the Rounder Label. Ginny and Tracy live in Elkins, WV.
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Val Mindel is a longtime musician, teacher and workshop leader, known for helping singers achieve that close, buzzy harmony that is a pillar of American old-time and early-country harmony. She also addresses such indefinables as tone (that high lonesome sound), ornamentation, blend and more. She is a veteran staff member at the Augusta Heritage Center’s various weeks and in addition has taught at numerous music camps across the U.S. and abroad, including: the Ashokan Center (Southern Week and the Old-Time Rollick), Centrum (Voice Works and Fiddle Tunes), Allegheny Echoes and, in the U.K., Sore Fingers. She is a founding member of the California-based Any Old Time string band (check out the band’s compilation album, I Bid You Goodnight on Smithsonian Folkways), and has two CDs with daughter and old-time country musician Emily Miller (In the Valley and Close to Home). Val is also the author of So You Want to Sing Folk Music, part of the “So You Want to Sing” series for Rowman & Littlefield and the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She lives in Elkins, West Virginia.
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From the 1970s through to the present, Dudley Connell has remained an important figure in bluegrass music, first as the founder and mainstay of the Johnson Mountain Boys and later as a member of the Seldom Scene. In 2020, Connell was inducted into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame with the Johnson Mountain Boys.
Sally Love Connell sings lead/harmony vocals and plays guitar. A WAMMIE award winner for best bluegrass vocalist, Sally has performed with various acoustic and bluegrass groups in the Washington DC area, including, with husband Dudley Connell, their own group, Seneca Rocks!
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Emily Miller is the Artistic Director of the Augusta Heritage Center, the string band director of the college’s Appalachian Ensemble, and a professional singer and fiddle player. At Augusta, Emily works with the director to oversee all programming and helps the theme week coordinators to execute a joint artistic vision. She received her BA in Anthropology-Linguistics from Brown University and her MS in Speech-Language Pathology from Vanderbilt University. In her career as a musician, she has toured with bands such as the Sweetback Sisters, The Starry Mountain Singers, and as a duo with Jesse Milnes, performing multiple times on national radio programs Mountain Stage and A Prairie Home Companion. She has released several albums of traditional and country music including In the Valley (2006), Chicken Ain’t Chicken (2009), Looking for a Fight (2012), Jesse Milnes & Emily Miller: Deep End Sessions (2015) and King of Killing Time (2017).
