Little High Neighborhood Association

Information for and about the Little High Neighborhood in Charlottesville, VA

Our backyard concert series -- back for a fourth year by popular demand!

Backyard Concert RESCHEDULED to August 15th, 7pm

The neighborhood backyard concert originally scheduled for tomorrow night has been RESCHEDULED to Thursday, August 15, 7pm, in the backyard of 1011 Little High Street.

Sumner & Herb will open with a short sing along and will be followed by Playing for Fun, a group of 10 talented musicians (some of whom are professionals) who gather each week at the home of Sudi Durland. This group plays everything from traditional to country to classic rock on guitar, bass, flute, harmonica and fiddle.

PFF playing in the backyard of 1011 Little High in August 2023

This event is FREE and open to the public. As always, we will pass the hat for donations to help support the Haven, the multi-resource day shelter downtown (112 West Market Street).

Our neighborhood  raised $678 (not bad!) at our first two concerts of the summer. We have a chance to surpass any of our previous summer concert efforts (begun in 2020) if we can keep this momentum going.

Anya Movius, Brian Keena Thurs., July 11, 7pm

Brian Keena. Anya Movius

The Little High Neighborhood Association is hosting a backyard neighborhood concert TOMORROW (Thursday, July 11) at 7pm in the backyard of 1107 East Jefferson Street.

This event is FREE.

EVERYONE in or out of the neighborhood is invited. Passports, birth certificates, photo ID, and major credit cards are NOT required. The turnstiles will be open starting at 6:30pm. The music will start promptly at 7pm. The lights at all our concerts run on solar power — i.e., we have to wrap up when the sun goes down which is why we don’t host jam bands.

Neighborhood concert Thursday (7/11) at 7pm

Neighborhood concert this Thursday (7/11) at 7pm in the backyard of 1107 E Jefferson St. featuring the phenomenal Brian Keena and the amazing Anya Movius.
Everyone is invited and the event is FREE.

More about this week’s performers

Brian Keena

Brian Keena

Having grown up in a musical family, Brian Keena plays (or played) a number of instruments, including trumpet, baritone horn, trombone, hand percussion, guitar, drums, keyboards, vocals, kazoo and bass. He also presents a weekly jazz and blues program on our local radio community radio station, WTJU, 91.1FM.

For this event, Brian will most likely play a guitar of some sort, and present covers of some of his favorite tunes from the pop, blues, rock and jazz worlds.

Anya Movius

Anya Movius

Anya Movius grew up in this neighborhood and began performing at open mic nights at a very young age. This summer, Anya, a Charlottesville High School graduate who just completed her first year at Harvard univerity, is recording an album and already has several singles out on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, etc. She has done a concert/interview for WTJU and was chosen for Harvard’s prestigious freshman talent show.

1st Neighborhood Concert June 20, 7pm

Our neighborhood concert series kicks off this Thursday, June 20, 7pm, at 1118 Little High street  with a great lineup:

Waverly Milor and Jack RoyPassionate singer, great harmonica player, and all around world-class front man Waverly Milor will team up with amazing slide guitarist Jack Roy to put on the best electric blues performance east of the Mississippi.

Singer, songwriter, and very impressive guitar player Luke Foster will follow with a set featuring original music that will leave everyone wondering why he isn’t already in Nashville and whether they can get a selfie so they can brag that they knew him back before he only did stadium tours.

We are very lucky to have these musicians living in our midst who are willing to share their extraordinary talents with us — for FREE.

ps — as always, we will pass the hat to help raise money for the Haven. Our neighborhood concert series raised over $650 last summer. Let’s try to do even better this summer!

Little High Summer Concert Lineup

The schedule for our world-famous backyard concert series has been set! Please watch this website and keep an eye out for emails with updates, location info, changes, and rain dates if necessary.

As always, our concerts are FREE and open to everyone… but we take the opportunity to pass the hat to help support the Haven, the multi-resource day shelter and housing resource center. which does critically important work in helping homeless people in our community. Last summer we raised more than $650 at our concerts and this year we’re going to try to do even more.

The performers themselves come from within the confines of just our neighborhood and range from outstanding professional performers (Waverly Milor) to well-meaning perennial amateurs (Jonathan Rice), with amazingly talented part-timers who have achieved critical and popular success (Luke Foster and Anya Movius) and numerous incredibly talented individuals such as Herb Beskin (once described by Entertainment Tonight as “the Vassar Clements of East Jefferson Street”), Sumner Brown (who should have her own exhibit in the Country Music Hall of Fame among other places), Brian Keena (an Americana/Jazz guitar savant), and Sudi Durland (the Mother Maybelle Carter of 13th Street) and many others in between.

The Schedule

  • June 20th: The summer series will be kicked off with the treat of hearing local professional musician (and our sound guy), Waverly Milor along with Jack Roy doing some blues. The talented singer/songwriter Luke Foster will open. A great way to start the summer!
  • July 11th: Don’t miss your chance to hear local phenom, Anya Movius for free in her own neighborhood! Anya put out her first EP in 2022 and has come out since with other songs and music videos. She was also selected to perform in Harvard’s first-year talent show in 2023. Quite a songwriting talent with a voice to match. Look her up on Spotify. The wonderful Brian Keena will open for her on guitar.
  • August 8th: Sudi’s Group. The Pied Piper of Charlottesville, Sudi Durland unites musicians for musical jams all over town. One of those groups takes place at her home right here in the Little High Neighborhood. Some really talented musicians will perform with varied instruments, songs and tunes. Start the evening by joining in with Sumner and Herb for a few sing-a-longs.
  • August 29th: The wonderful Jon Rice will show us his fingerstyle guitar chops and he may have some surprise guests with him. City Walk resident, Michael Goodwin will join us for the first time on trumpet or as part of a steel drum group to open. (City Walk is a part of the Little High Neighborhood!)

Little High neighborhood backyard concert June 21, 2022

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