Kim Wilson, the legendary harmonica virtuoso and frontman of The Fabulous Thunderbirds, is preparing for what may be his most personally meaningful tour yet. The upcoming "A Tribute to Chicago Blues" tour represents a homecoming of sorts for Wilson, who cut his teeth playing alongside the very architects of the Chicago blues sound during the genre's golden era.

The "Tribute to Chicago Blues" tour will feature a mix of classic chestnuts and deeper cuts from the Chicago blues catalog. "There will be a lot more traditional songs in the set," Wilson explains. "We haven't decided exactly how we're going to mix it up yet, but I'm hoping I can do this for a little while, to be honest with you."

However, Wilson will maintain his traditional approach of not using set lists. "I prefer to let the energy of the crowd and the performance dictate the evening's direction.”

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Sponsored by Anna Marie and Richard Rosen

The Kings of Queen are the hottest Queen tribute in the country, if not the world. Given that he’s been dubbed as the reincarnated Freddie Mercury, frontman Emo Alaeddin is quite the spectacle.

Although there may be others, no other Queen tribute comes close to The Kings of Queen.

Equally important to sounding like Queen, the frontman Emo Alaeddin has a striking resemblance to Freddie Mercury.

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A young boy who has grown skeptical of Santa Claus is shocked to see a train stop outside his window on Christmas Eve, destined for the North Pole. When he accepts an invitation from the conductor to climb on board, he embarks on a white-knuckle ride to Santa's headquarters, where he makes fast friends and learns an invaluable lesson about the true spirit of Christmas. Come dressed in your PJs!

Rated G

Hosted by the Franklin County Fiscal Court - A benefit concert supporting a new accessible playground at Lakeview Park.

Lakeview Park is undergoing exciting improvements, with Phase 1 of the new softball complex nearing completion and planning underway for Phase 2. A centerpiece of the next phase will be an inclusive, accessible playground where children of all abilities can play, explore, and enjoy our beautiful park. Your support will help us jumpstart the construction of this premier playground that will be unlike any other in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Best of all, 100% of the funds raised through this benefit concert will go directly toward making this vision a reality.

Ticket Link

One December, not long after Over the Rhine began recording and touring, we were invited to

perform some seasonal songs on a public radio station. We worked up a few carols and

traditional tunes. It actually felt really good and conjured up an unusual mix of feelings from

childhood: innocence, loss, wonder, joy, sadness. I think we were surprised.

People must have tuned into the radio broadcast, because we began receiving inquiries as to

whether we had recorded any of our Christmas songs. In December of 1996 – can it really be

30 years ago? – we recorded and released our first song cycle of some of the Christmas carols

that still haunted us. We included a few original tunes and called our wintry mix The Darkest

Night Of The Year. Folks began snatching up copies and seemed to agree that they hadn’t

heard anything quite like it.

A decade later, in 2006, we released our first full collection of original Christmas/holiday songs

called Snow Angels. What is it about Christmas music and the undeniable gravitational pull it

exerts on some songwriters? So many Christmas songs have already been written. I think we

remain genuinely curious about the ones that haven't yet been written.

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A Doublewide, Texas Christmas is an outrageously funny, fast-paced holiday comedy play written by the popular playwright trio Jones, Hope, and Wooten. It centers on the eccentric residents of the tiniest town in Texas as they fight to save their community from county double-crossing while preparing for a disaster-prone nativity contest.

Meshell Ndegeocello has survived the best and worst of what a career in music has to offer. Having collaborated with many artist, her largest hit was with John Mellencamp where they recorded a cover of Van Morrison's "Wild Night" in 1994 for Mellencamp's album "Dance Naked." She has eschewed genre for originality, celebrity for longevity, and musical trends for musical truths. Fans have come to expect the unexpected and follow her on sojourns into soul, R&B, jazz, hip-hop, rock, all bound by the search for love, justice, respect, and resolution. Those sonic investigations have defied and redefined the expectations for women, for queer artists, and for black music for over 30 years and she remains one of few women who write the music, sing the sonsgs, and lead the band. A bass player above all else, Meshell brings her warm, fat, and melodic groove to everything she does. She has earned a GRAMMY Award along with numerous nominations, and has played alongside the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Alanis Morrisette, James Blood Ulmer, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Tony Allen, John Medeski, Billy Preston, and Chaka Khan. As for her own bass-playing influences, she credits Sting, Jaco Pastorius, Family Man Barrett, and Stevie Wonder. Meshell is always grateful for the opportunity to share the stage and believes music is a fellowship. She looks to spread that gospel with every creation and collaboration.

Puccini’s exhilarating drama of the Wild West returns in a new staging by Richard Jones, marking the company’s first new production of La Fanciulla del West in more than 30 years. Soprano Vida Miknevičiūtė stars as Minnie, the tough tavern owner with a heart of gold who finds love when she least expects it. Tenor SeokJong Baek is the dashing bandit who rambles into the remote California mining town to steal her heart, opposite baritone Christopher Maltman as the lawman determined to deliver justice—and win Minnie for himself. Maestro Keri-Lynn Wilson takes the podium to conduct one of opera’s most action-packed adventures, live from the Met stage to cinemas worldwide.

Run Time 3 hours 15 min

Performed in Italian

Steve Fossen and Michael Derosier, bassist and drummer for the band Heart during the 1970s and early 1980s, are now touring as Heart By Heart. "Our mission is to perform the classic Heart music as faithfully as we can," Fossen says. The band features vocalist Somar Macek, guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Lizzy Daymont and guitarist Chad Quist. Heart By Heart presents a powerful, dynamic show that includes all the favorite Heart hits as well as deep album cuts that fans will love.

Fossen and Derosier are the powerful driving engine behind Heart's classic hits like “Barracuda”, “Straight On”, “Crazy On You”, “Magic Man”, “Even It Up”, “Dog & Butterfly”, “Heartless”, “Kick It Out”, and more. First formed by Steve Fossen in 1969, Heart went on to release six top-10 albums and landed 20 hit singles on the Billboard top 40 chart. In recognition of their contributions to these iconic recordings, and to Heart’s first seven years of national and international touring, Fossen and Derosier were inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the rest of the original Heart lineup in 2013.

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Sponsored by Joyce Albro and Gene Taylor

Sam Bush is an American mandolinist who is considered an originator of progressive bluegrass music. In 2020, he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame as a member of New Grass Revival. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame a second time in 2023 as a solo artist.

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Sponsored by First Federal Savings and Loan

Get swept away in the enchanting harmonies of the Celtic Angels as they present an impassioned homage to their beloved Emerald Isle. This gloriously evocative journey will captivate audiences and have them clapping their hands, wiping their tears and stamping their feet.

Escape to Verdant Valleys and Heathery Highlands. Step back in time to the Land of Saints and Scholars. Lose yourself in the alluring Angels’ magical melodies Feel your heart pound to raucous rhythms of the champion Celtic Knights Dancers. Immerse yourself in Ireland’s infectious influences across the Wild Blue Ocean to the Amber Waves of Grain and Beyond.

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Sponsored by Kay and Bill Kirkland

America first fell in love with Clay Aiken's extraordinary voice and undeniable charisma on the second season of American Idol. His journey on the show became a cultural phenomenon, drawing nearly 40 million viewers to the finale—one of the highest-rated live television broadcasts of the 21st century—and launching one of the most successful recording careers to emerge from the series.

Aiken's first single, “This Is The Night,” made history as the first track by a brand-new artist to enter the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 1, selling nearly 400,000 copies in its opening week. The follow-up, “Invisible,” became a defining early-2000s pop hit, climbing to No. 37 on the Hot 100 and earning RIAA Gold certification. His debut album, Measure of a Man, then entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1 and went multi-platinum, cementing him as one of pop music's biggest new artists.

In 2026, Aiken began an exciting new musical chapter with the release of his first new music in eighteen years. His single "Rewind," written by Colton Avery and Grammy Award-winning producer and songwriter Dave Audé and produced by Audé, marked both a return to recording and a fresh creative direction. The release coincided with Aiken's homecoming to the American Idol stage, where he debuted the song during the season finale.

As he reintroduces himself to longtime fans and new listeners alike, Aiken is once again focused on what has always defined his career: exceptional songs, unforgettable performances, and one of the most recognizable voices in popular music. "Rewind" is the first offering from a new full-length studio album, due September 25, 2026, his first in nearly two decades.

Steep Canyon Rangers arrive at a moment of renewal and reaffirmation with Next Act, their 15th studio album set to be released May 22, 2026. The record represents a conscious tightening of focus: a return to the bluegrass foundations that first bound the band together, approached with the confidence and emotional range earned through years of collective evolution. It is an affirmation that bluegrass still contains endless expressive possibility. Next Act finds the Rangers sounding deeply at home in their own musical language, drawing strength from tradition while continuing to write new chapters within it.

Formed in North Carolina and shaped equally by the Appalachian Mountains and the Piedmont, Steep Canyon Rangers have long occupied a singular space in American roots music. From their earliest recordings, the band demonstrated an unusual ability to honor traditional bluegrass forms while allowing contemporary songwriting, literary influence, and regional storytelling to seep naturally into the music. Over time, this balance earned them both bluegrass credibility and broader Americana acclaim, culminating in a Best Bluegrass Album GRAMMY Award for 2013’s Nobody Knows You, additional nominations for Rare Bird Alert (2012) and North Carolina Songbook (2020), and an induction into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

In recent years, as their audience expanded and their songwriting reach grew wider, the Rangers began to feel a pull back toward the elemental forces that shaped them: acoustic instruments speaking clearly, songs built for ensemble interplay, and stories grounded in lived experience and regional memory. Next Act emerges from that impulse.

Steep Canyon Rangers is made up of Graham Sharp on banjo and vocals, Mike Guggino on mandolin/mandola and vocals, Aaron Burdett on guitar and vocals, Nicky Sanders on fiddle and vocals, Mike Ashworth on drums, dobro, percussion and vocals, and Barrett Smith on bass, guitar, and vocals.

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Following his smash-hit company debut with The Hours, composer Kevin Puts returns to the Met with his Pulitzer Prize–winning opera, inspired by the true events of the 1914 Christmas truce. A poignant depiction of shared humanity in the most inhumane circumstances, Puts’s grand, cinematic opera—with a libretto in English, French, and German by Mark Campbell—has been widely acclaimed since its 2011 premiere, hailed as “an overwhelming emotive experience” by The Guardian. The evocative staging by James Robinson takes the audience directly to the battlefields of the Western Front with a star-studded cast, featuring soprano Elza van den Heever and tenors Ben Bliss and Rolando Villazón, conducted by Maestro Dalia Stasevska live from the Met to cinemas worldwide.

Run Time 3 hours

Following her radiant performance in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette—which garnered raves for “high notes that spun like liquid gold … Sierra touched the operatic firmament” (The New York Times)—superstar soprano Nadine Sierra takes on another alluring French heroine, the irresistible title character of Massenet’s passionate drama, live from the Met stage to cinemas worldwide. Leading tenor Matthew Polenzani is her idealistic lover, the Chevalier des Grieux, with rising- star baritone Andrzej Filończyk as her stalwart cousin, Lescaut, in a breathtaking staging by director Laurent Pelly.

Run Time 4 hours 24 min

Performed in French

Since 1985, comedy duo Scott and Joan Houghton have brought their unique blend of physical comedy and circus arts to audiences from Las Vegas to Tokyo. They spent three years with country star Lee Greenwood at his theater in Tennessee and seven years as the featured comedy act at Dolly Parton’s Theaters in Branson, Orlando and Myrtle Beach.

In 2005, the duo turned their attention to a creating a comedy dog act. Their nine amazing canine partners are all adopted from animal shelters and rescues. Mutts Gone Nuts is sure to unleash havoc and hilarity as the Houghtons attempt to match wits with their mischievous mutts in a family-friendly performance that is leaving audiences howling for more!

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Sponsored by Kentucky Monthly Magazine