OAKLAND — At 7 p.m. Saturday, May 4, the Messalonskee Performing Arts Center, 131 Messalonskee High Drive will be filled with the sound of music — bluegrass and Celtic music in particular. The concert will feature at least four different acts and will benefit the Messalonskee District Music Programs.

Headlining the show is the Maranacook String Band, a very popular local bluegrass band that was started three years ago as a high school band at Maranacook High School in Readfield by Stan Keach, then the teacher of gifted/talented students at Maranacook. Since then, Keach has retired from teaching. Two of the band members have graduated from high school and are students at the University of Maine Orono. The band has continued as a professional group and has played over 100 concerts, including such prestigious gigs as the Kingfield POPs Festival and Slate’s Monday Night Concert Series. Their debut CD, “Bear in the Barn,” has sold well, and Keach has recently released a CD, “Cry of the Loon” and other original songs about Maine, which features the String Band as well as the Sandy River Ramblers, a band of  “grownups” in which Keach also leads.

The String Band features excellent lead and harmony singing by 19-year-old Julie Churchill and 17-year-old Lee Stetson, and super mandolin picking by Dan Simons, a 2000 Maranacook graduate. Keach and Simons recently posted a video of a Keach song, “What the North Pond Hermit Knows,” on YouTube; the video has gotten over 4,000 hits, and has been the subject of news articles in every major newspaper in Maine. Special guest banjoist Bud Godsoe will play a few numbers with the String Band.

Velocipede, a Celtic duo, consists of fiddler Julia Plumb and mandolinist Baron Collins-Hill, a recent graduate of Messalonskee High. Velocipede has played at contra dances, clubs and concerts all over Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and New York. Besides fiddle and mandolin, they feature viola, foot percusion and tenor guitar. Their self-titled debut CD consists of 25 of their favorite fiddle tunes from America, Quebec, the British Isles and Scandinavia.

There will also be performances by some of Messalonskee High School?s finest singers and musicians including the Messalonskee Mastersingers directed by Kevin Rhein, and Messalonskee instrumental ensembles directed by Andrew Forster.

Admission is $10 for adults; $5 for students; free for children under 6. Refreshments will be available for purchase at intermission. For more information, call 207-397-2241 or email [email protected].

GO AND DO

What: Big music show

Who: Maranacook String Band, Velocipede, Messalonskee Mastersingers, and Messalonskee band group

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, May 4

Where: Performing Arts Center, Messalonskee High School

Admission: Adults $10; students $5; kids under 6 free

Benefits: Messalonskee Music Programs, through the Friends of Music

FMI: Call 207-397-2241 or email [email protected]