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News Release

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CONTACT: E-mail: zentzfolk@aol.com ---- Phone: (757) 622-8918 ---- Write: 715 Virginia Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23508

Bob Zentz Returns to "Common Ground on the Hill"

Annual appearance as an instructor and performer July 5-10; Common Ground festival July 11-12.

June 5, 2009 -- One month from today, Bob Zentz returns to one of the folk world's favorite summer venues.

Common Ground on the Hill offers summer classes that encourage human understanding, tolerance, fulfillment and enjoyment, at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. Bob has been an instructor and performer at Common Ground for many years, and joins an extraordinary international faculty who will present a broad array of courses that touch music, art, movement, writing and courses in the human arts. In addition to the instructional courses Common Ground will offer a distinctive lecture series, an evening concert series, and a nonviolence institute.

Bob will offer several classes during Traditions Week I, July 5-10, including "Finding the Right Instrument," "Songwriting in Your Genes" (with daughter Skye Zentz), and "19th Century Americana Music," and will help lead the daily "Big Song Swap."

Bob will also perform at Common Ground's "Roots Music and Arts Festival" on Saturday, July 11 at the Carroll County Farm Museum. For a full schedule and course listing, and registration/admission information, visit http://www.commongroundonthehill.org/index.html.

Common Ground's Vision and Goals are as follows:

Vision
Common Ground on the Hill was founded on the premise that there is a common human thread unifying all people expressed in our various artistic traditions. Our mission is to make this thread a path towards human understanding, tolerance, fulfillment, and enjoyment.

The embodiment of this path will be a music and arts community where master musicians, artists, craftspeople, and creative thinkers will provide a quality learning experience for an audience which we will endeavor to increase in size, diversity, and influence. It is essential to the success of this mission that the artists, teachers, and students, reflect local, national, and international communities.

Goals
To provide the opportunity to teach and to study various musical instruments and art forms representing various ethnic and cultural traditions. To sponsor a series of musical and artistic events from cultural and ethnic groups who are marginalized in our society or who are in conflict with each other and listen to their voices, e.g., Indigenous People, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, Euro-Americans etc. To encourage and facilitate dialogue, by way of the arts among different cultural traditions, in order to discover that this artistic common ground unites us, and that, as a result, the world might become a more human place.

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For five decades, Bob Zentz has been at the heart of the Hampton Roads traditional music scene. The Norfolk native performs internationally yet still lives and performs in his hometown, and is active in nurturing the next generation of traditional music performers, in the belief that the future of our world depends upon our youth, and music. Information about Bob's music, life, friends, performances, and programs for all ages – elementary school to elders – is available at www.bobzentz.com

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