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Putting on a show Show Choir students perform in the Winter Fine Arts Festival at Ashland High School. Photo by Steve Werblow Monday Dec 12, 2016 at 6:08 PM Dec 12, 2016 at 8:49 PM Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings @Joe_Zavala99 Raising a child with a unique talent can be a source of tremendous pride, especially when that talent is often performed before jam-packed auditoriums. But, it can also be expensive. Just ask KC Dunlap, mother of Ashland High School sophomore Lily Dunlap. The younger Dunlap is a gifted violinist who, roughly eight years after bowing her first set of strings as a precocious 7-year-old, has already earned enough accolades to fill up an impressive resume. She’s won the Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon concerto competition, represented Oregon on the all-national honor orchestra, represented Southern Oregon at the state solo competition and, over the last four years (and counting), has represented District 8 of the Oregon Music Education Association in the Oregon all-state orchestra. All the honors, the standing ovations and the countless hours of hard work that made it all possible, however, come at a price. To help ease that burden for Dunlap and young artists like her, Ashland High Arts Advocates (AHAA!), holds one major fundraiser a year — the Winter Fine Arts Festival. This year’s version is set for Thursday at Ashland High School Mountain Avenue Theatre. Tickets ($15) are available at Paddington Station (125 E. Main St.) and at the door. To help Dunlap reach her potential, AHAA! has partially reimbursed the $275 tuition costs for the all-state orchestra in Eugene, and last summer awarded her a scholarship to cover private lessons with Rogue Valley Symphony concertmaster Scott Cole. The lessons with Cole, KC Dunlap said, were very rewarding. “She was the concertmaster at the Marrowstone Music Festival in Bellingham (Washington),” KC Dunlap said, “so with Dr. Cole’s help she was preparing for music and leadership strategies for that event.” Lily Dunlap is one of dozens of young artists who have benefited from AHAA!’s fundraising efforts. According to KC Dunlap, an AHAA! volunteer, the organization has handed out over 20 scholarships this year and $9,000 overall — $4,000 in student summer enrichment scholarships, $3,500 in teacher grants and $1,300 in support for district and state events. “And what’s really great about AHAA! is that it supports all the arts across the campus,” she said. “So we have the culinary arts students, who are going to be providing dinner at the Winter Fine Arts Festival; we have the visual and sculpture and finer arts students, who are going to have their displays in the hallway in the display cases. The visual arts students are going to be doing a video presentation. The musicians will be performing for the guests in the lobby before the show as well. And all of these students are eligible to apply for our scholarships. “Last year we had students going to circus camps, theater camps, drawing instruction, music lessons. And one student who applied for a grant to attend Project Up, which is a theater camp for developmentally disabled students.” The festival raised a little under $10,000 for AHAA! each of the last two years. Those numbers were short of expectations and the event’s high-water mark of $16,000 to $17,000 six years ago, according to AHAA! board member Paul Finwall. But Finwall is optimistic that this year’s festival will draw a bigger crowd and raise more money. AHAA! sold about 250 tickets last year, not enough to pack the 400-seat theater. In years past, he said, AHAA! sold more tickets than the theater could hold, so the two-hour show ran twice, to accommodate. Why the drop in attendance? “I think it’s a little analogous to a very successful restaurant that’s been around just a little bit too long in the same format,” he said. “I think it needed some changes. We needed to get the community to buy back into it a little differently. …We’ve got some great volunteers, some very skilled people. But, it’s a matter of pulling all those strings together in a way that produces a peak event.” Finwall added that although AHAA! has pulled off the event with as few as eight volunteers, the ideal number is about 20. This year, about 15 have stepped up, and the festival boasts a large collection of items for its basket-themed silent auction as well as a pre-show meal prepared by Ashland Culinary Festival’s 2016 top chef winner Josh Dorcak of Scarpetta Prima. Dorcak and his assistants — Ashland High’s culinary arts students — will be serving soups and bread. While eating in the cafeteria, patrons will be entertained by a variety of musicians, from a jazz band ensemble to soloists. “Last year they rolled a piano in,” Finwall said. “The performing arts teachers …and the students put so much of themselves into this process.” About 75 items will be part of the silent auction, many in baskets which will have a theme. Darex, for instance, has donated enough tools to fill two baskets, and other baskets will feature items for dog or cat owners. Local wineries, such as Grizzly Peak Winery, also donated items. The doors open for the café and silent auction at 5:30 p.m. The show itself, which begins at 7 p.m., includes an intermission and wraps up at around 8:45, is loaded with the best talent Ashland High School has to offer. The two-act lineup includes a short student-produced video, some original poem presentations and performances by the school’s a cappella choir, acting ensembles and combined orchestras. Serving as the master of ceremonies will be Oregon Shakespeare Festival actor and director Christopher Liam Moore. The festival will open with a performance of “At Morning’s First Light” by Ashland High’s 80-piece combined band. Band teacher Travis Moddison, who also teaches band at Ashland Middle School, says his class at AHS has benefited from AHAA!’s support and has come a long way in the last few years. “I think the band is growing in size and quality, so we’re working on growing the ensemble from about 60 kids and now we have 80 kids in the ensemble,” he said. “We’re traveling to more festivals this year than we have and we’re able to get a lot more scholarship opportunities for kids. Last year we had two kids receive music scholarships out of the three seniors that we had. “I work at the middle school so I get to know the kids. And I tell them about the program and say, ‘Hey, you should check it out. If you hate it, you hate it. But you might like it.’ We just keep at it, keep talking to them, keep offering the opportunities.” Joe Zavala is a reporter for the Ashland Daily Tidings. Reach him at 541-821-0829 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @Joe_Zavala99.