Michael Cleveland to perform during the Ga. Mountain Fall Festival

Throughout each day of the upcoming and highly anticipated annual Georgia Mountain Fall Festival, visitors will be entertained with a wide range of musical performances, free concerts and attractions. Each year, a special guest is invited to play during the Fiddlers' Convention. This year's guest, Michael Cleveland, promises to bring spectacular talent and inspiration. Cleveland has built a reputation for being one of the premier bluegrass fiddlers of his generation despite blindness. He began becoming recognized for his talent at a young age. In 1993, at age 13, he was chosen to be part of the Bluegrass Youth All Stars at the IBMA's (International Bluegrass Music Association) award show and made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry as a guest of Alison Krauss later that same year.

After high school he briefly toured with then-named Dale Ann Bradley and Coon Creek before joining Rhonda Vincent and The Rage in 2000. At the 2001 IBMA awards, Cleveland took his first Fiddle Player of the Year award, and shared the title of Entertainer of the Year with Rhonda Vincent and the Rage. The accolades kept pouring in. In 2002 he rejoined The Dale Ann Bradley Band and won the Fiddle Player of the Year award (which he repeated again in 2004). His first project as a Rounder recording artist, "Flame Keeper," was released in February 2002 and was chosen the IBMA's Instrumental Album of the Year. Additional awards include: the 2004 Instrumental Album of the Year award with Tom Adams for "Tom Adams and Michael Cleveland Live at the Ragged Edge," an album of fiddle and banjo duets; the 2006 IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year Award and Instrumental Album of the Year for "Let 'Er Go, Boys!"

Today at 26, Cleveland has performed recently with top musicians such as Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, The Mark Newton Band, J.D. Crowe and the New South, Audie Blaylock and Redline, Melven Goins and Windy Mountain and The Wildwood Valley Boys. The active studio musician's credits also include the 2005 GRAMMY nominated "A Tribute to Jimmy Martin: The King of Bluegrass" and a 2003 GRAMMY winner, Jimmy Sturr's "Let's Polka 'Round."

Cleveland recently assembled his own band, Flamekeeper, and has been delighting audiences on the festival circuit. Together they bring exciting and inventive transformations to classic bluegrass with a program of tight vocal trios and duos, blistering instrumentals and fiddle-andbanjo duets that bring to mind bluegrass stars of yesteryear.

Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper will take the stage with "Fiddlin" Howard Cunningham and the Appalachian Tunesmiths on Friday, October 19 at 2 p.m. They will again take the stage that same day at 5:30 p.m.