‘Free Seedlings’ to open for Blue Highway

Sylvester Manor’s Bennett Konesni and friends — Jeff and David Lewis — playing under the moniker of “Free Seedlings,” will open Saturday night’s concert of award-winning bluegrass featuring the Grammy-nominated band, Blue Highway.

The box office in the school lobby will open at 7 p.m.; the concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20, $25 and $30 and are available at brownpapertickets.com  or by calling Sylvester Manor at 749-0626. Shelter Island students will receive a $10 discount at the door.

Bennett, Sylvester Manor’s steward, fronted for the Route 7 Ramblers at Middlebury College in Vermont and toured the northeast with Circus Smirkus. Following college, he collected farmers’ work songs in rural Africa, Asia and Europe during a post-graduate year of field research as a T.J. Watson Fellow.

Hailing from North Carolina, David Lewis played pedal steel and bass in rock, country and jazz bands before returning to acoustic music in the early 90s. His son, mandolinist Jeff Lewis, was learning guitar chords from his father when he was 10 and soon the father/son duo was playing at bluegrass festivals across Maine, where Jeff is currently in school.

Members of Blue Highway have been entertaining audiences around the world for 15 years, earning numerous awards along the way for their songwriting and musicianship. Their new album, “Sounds of Home,” is currently number five on the national bluegrass charts, and two songs from the album score are in the top 20.