128 past events with the outdoor concerts tag

Homecoming Carillon Concert with John Gouwens

Join us for an incredible outdoor performance from Ball State's iconic Bell Tower! As a part of our Homecoming celebration, carillonneur John Gouwens will perform for the Ball State community to hear throughout campus. Come celebrate the beauty of Ball State through song! This concert is free and open to the public. 

Grammy-winning bluegrass greats Steep Canyon Rangers will open our 2025 Muncie Three Trails Music Series with our first FREE CONCERT on Saturday, May 31st at Canan Commons in Downtown Muncie! Our first opening act of the 2025 season will be Muncie's Mike Martin & The Beautiful Mess! Lawn chairs, dancing, and all ages are welcome! Come early and come hungry for our local food/drink vendors too! Explore the Trails, Enjoy the Music! 

Learn more about the 2025 Series here:

https://www.MuncieThreeTrails.com

RSVP here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/1BnNozA8G1/

Over the band’s esteemed career, Steep Canyon Rangers have released 14 studio albums, three collaborative albums with actor and banjoist Steve Martin, and been inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame! Heralds of the Carolina sound for more than two decades, the GRAMMY-winning Steep Canyon Rangers find themselves in a unique seat at the table for their new release, Morning Shift. On this record, the band tell stories that both honor their roots, and expand upon the living art of bluegrass music. Recorded in Bat Cave, NC, at the Hickory Nut Gap Inn, a historical refuge settled near a long-forgotten crossroads of Southern Appalachia, this was the perfect space to feel confident in expanding upon that Carolina sound, the perfect runway to let their well-oiled machine do what it does best- craft stories from the ground up, as a unit. With a sure hand at the wheel was the distinguished Darrell Scott, whom the Rangers put full faith in to navigate the waters of producing their most important record to date. “It was like going to recording camp,” said Scott, “We ate together, we stayed at the Inn together the whole time, and we recorded. Going about it that way made for a very organic record.” A thoughtful approach to collaboration, ironclad creative trust, and a collective drive towards authentic storytelling, makes for not only a quintessential Rangers record, but a modern North Carolina classic.

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 and vocals, and Barrett Smith on bass, guitar, and vocals. Hailing from both the Appalachian and Piedmont regions of North Carolina, the Rangers have long held traditional bluegrass paramount, while possessing an exceptional ability to bring it down the mountain, and to incorporate accessible influences from all walks of the region. Too, newcomer Burdett brings a soul-stirring element to the Rangers’ mastery of mountain music. Burdett is an award-winning singer-songwriter, and a student of folk tradition. He provides a fresh, emotional context to the songbook, which “can reach out and touch your heart or slap you in the face,” to use the praise of drummer and multi-instrumentalist, Mike Ashworth. “I’ve always loved traditional Old Time and Bluegrass, and the concept of neo- traditional re-visitations and interpretations of those styles.” says Burdett. “Once I started singing with the Rangers, I saw an opportunity to try to write some songs for the band that brought in the traditional sounds and structures that I grew up hearing here in western North Carolina.”

With the band’s last few albums, they have gained recognition well beyond the world of bluegrass, earning a reputation as some of the most influential songwriters in Americana today. Steep Canyon Rangers have appeared on some of music’s biggest stages and in 2013, Nobody Knows You won the GRAMMY Award for Best Bluegrass Album, while 2012’s Rare Bird and 2020’s North Carolina Songbook garnered nominations in the same category!

Learn more about Steep Canyon Rangers here:

https://www.SteepCanyon.com

You are going to love this FREE show! And we're making sure of it with our great local opening act, long-time patrons of the arts in Muncie, Mike Martin & The Beautiful Mess! Their music has been called everything from folk to bluegrass to punk rock to Celtic to country. The band consists of Mike on guitar, Caryn Egan on viola, Ripley Owermohle on banjo and harmonica, James Reynen on bass, and CJ Barrow on drums (all but CJ also share vocal duties). The last two years the band has won Country Americana Band of the Year in Charleston, SC. Mike, an East Central Indiana native, states, “Muncie had a huge influence on my music and my music business." - come show them your love of Muncie too!

Known as America’s Big Band, the Jazz Ambassadors are the premier touring jazz orchestra of the United States Army. Formed in 1969, this 19-piece ensemble has received critical acclaim throughout the United States and abroad, performing America’s original art form, jazz.

July 4th at Minnetrista with AHB Concert Band

America's Hometown Band entertains the Independence Day crowd at Minnetrista - right up to Fireworks time. The music begins at 7 pm with George Wolfe's AHB Jazz Combo, and then at 7:30 the AHB Concert Band delivers the patriotic fare of the evening.

AHB brings back to Muncie - Crooner Myles Ogea, on July 17, 7 pm, at Munnetrista

   AHB Concert Band brings Guest Vocalist Myles Ogea back to Muncie - his hometown - to serenade us all with tunes in the Sinatra/Buble style.  Join us on the lawn at Minnetrista’s main building, from 7- 8:15 pm, July 17.
         Bring lawn chair & parasol 🎵

AHB Cool Tunes at Westside Park

     It’s Summer Swing Time with America’s Hometown Band‘s jazz/swing musicians — everyone‘s Havin’ it Made in the Shade at 7:30 pm, Thursday the 24th in Muncie !   
Lawn seating.  

Bandleader & Trumpeter Larry McWilliams

Park your lawn chair under the trees at Westside & get ready for that Big Band Swing sound from AHB Jazz/Swing Band.  Bandleader is Larry McWilliams, creator of the Jazz Program at Ball State University. 

The ‘very talented’ AHB Concert Band

This concert is a showcase of just a a few of AHB’s talented musicians - Soloists and Small Ensembles -  all of whom contribute to AHB’s big sound year after year!

AHB Concert Band performs at Field of Flags Display Closing Ceremony on Sept 11, at Minnetrista.

   On Patriots Day 9/11, AHB Concert Band accompanies the Field of Flags Closing Ceremony at Minnetrista. The week-long multi-flag display on the Minnetrista front greensward honors and remembers the victims and rescue respondents who perished in the New York City 9/11 terrorist attack of 2001 — as well as the service and history of the entire cadre of America’s disaster respondents. 

AHB is a tradition at the Old Washington St Festival - concert date for 2025 is Sun, Sept 14, at 2 pm.

    Under the bright red tent - at 2:00 pm on Sunday, Sept 14 - the AHB Concert Band performs its last concert of the 2025 season during Muncie’s long-running Old Washington Street Festival… and the audience areas are tent-shaded, too.   

The Fierce

Special guest Sofia Vaughn will open at 6:30pm to start off the night with great music!

Then, The Fierce return to Tonne Winery at 7pm for their Summer Music Series!

Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper

GRAMMY-winning bluegrass greats Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper will be performing a FREE outdoor concert as part of the 2026 Muncie Three Trails Music Series. This concert is sponsored by the Community Foundation of Muncie and Delaware County. Locals The John Beatrtice Band will open the show. Widely considered the best bluegrass fiddler of his generation, Michael Cleveland has been recognized 12 times as the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) “Fiddler of the Year,” and in 2018 he was inducted into the National Fiddler’s Hall of Fame. His recording Fiddler’s Dream was nominated in 2018 for a GRAMMY for “Best Bluegrass Album,” and in 2019, his album Tall Fiddler won that award. In 2022, he, like his idol Bill Monroe, was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship. And most recently, Michael’s latest recording with Jason Carter, Carter & Cleveland,  won IBMA’s 2025 “Album of the Year” award and has been nominated for a 2026 GRAMMY for “Best Bluegrass Album.”

AHB Concert Band at Westside Park

     The Concert Band Musicians from America’s Hometown Band of Muncie are performing a family-pleasing review of favorite screen & stage themes that you will recognize and probably hum along with. Come to the park and reminisce with the band!  Free and open to all - coolers & non-alcoholic drinks ok

Pokey LaFarge

Critically acclaimed musician Pokey LaFarge and his band will be performing a FREE outdoor concert as part of the 2026 Muncie Three Trails Music Series. This concert is sponsored by Defur Voran. Locals Jerry Barker & the Onion Cutters will open the show.

LaFarge never wanted to be an artist that had one gigantic record and then kept repeating the same thing over and over. His last three albums, including his newest, Rhumba Country, gives evidence that he is in no danger of doing that. 2020’s Rock Bottom Rhapsody, hailed as a “Best of 2020” by NPR’s Fresh Air, was dark, lean and melancholy, without horns or anything else that might interfere with the vocals and the lyrics. By contrast, 2021’s In The Blossom of Their Shade showcased Pokey’s positivity, capturing the vibe of a perfect summer afternoon soundtrack. And as with all his previous works, In The Blossom of Their Shade continued to mix and match a wide variety of styles and traditions, this time around drawing on sounds from hot swing, ragtime, country blues, and Americana, as well as incorporating influences from the Southwest, South America, and the Caribbean. And now, on Rhumba Country, his latest full-length, LaFarge revels in his newly heightened devotion to making music that channels pure joy. As Pokey immersed himself in the album’s creation, he once again began dreaming up a kaleidoscopic sound informed by his love of music from far-ranging eras and corners of the globe, including mambo, tropicália, rocksteady, and mid-century American rock-and-roll. Wherever his musical inspirations may take him, there is one thing you can be sure of – when Pokey LaFarge takes the stage, he will continue to entertain audiences everywhere with his unique mix of styles and dynamic showmanship. We are extremely pleased to be able to welcome Pokey LaFarge back to the Three Trails stage.