46th LEAF Festival is This Weekend

The 46th LEAF Festival takes place through Sunday, May 13th, at the majestic Lake Eden in Black Mountain, NC. There will be dozens of performers at the festival including Snarky Puppy, The Suffers, The Change, and Ani DiFranco.

In addition to the incredible music lineup the festival will also host the 5th annual Newsong Singer Songwriters Competition and the Southern Fried Poetry Slam.

During the Newsong Singer Songwriters Competition judges will select eight finalists from the pool of entries who will perform in the live showcase and competition finals on Saturday, May 12th. A panel of music industry judges will select the overall winner of the competition.

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The Southern Fried Poetry Slam is an annual performing arts festival and tournament celebrating poetry, spoken word, and community outreach. If you have never seen a poetry slam before, prepare to be amazed. Poetry Slam is high energy, high intensity, relevant and virtuoso performances by some of this nation’s greatest young talent and minds. The Southern Fried Poetry Slam began in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1993, as both an outgrowth of the evolving national poetry slam scene and as an organic element of the southern oral culture and history.

For the past 22 years, each May and October, the LEAF Festival brings together an intergenerational family of 12,000 people upon the beautiful Lake Eden grounds to experience the power that music, art, and culture contains to transform lives, strengthen community, and foster unity. LEAF Festival takes place on the site of the old Historic Black Mountain College with a stunning array of rolling hills, lakes, streams, and mountain beauty on hundreds of acres of comfortable camping grounds. LEAF scours the globe for artists, musicians, performers and facilitators that are not only masters of their craft, but who also care deeply for the power of arts education and family engagement.

Unlike most music festivals, LEAF Festival is produced by a 501(c)3 nonprofit, LEAF Community Arts (LEAF), with a mission to connect cultures, build community and enrich lives through the arts – locally and globally – with festivals, community events, and arts education programs.  As a nonprofit venture, all donations and festival proceeds support a year-round music and arts education programming.

Your attendance at LEAF not only provides you with an amazing weekend experience with friends and family, but provides a platform for fostering the growth of our youth into creative leaders in their communities worldwide.

An interactive festival guide is located at issuu.com. Additional information about the festival can be found at www.theleaf.org.