Sydney Shepherd Hickory Arts House Concert Sponsored by I’m With the Band: The Mesh Saturday, June 23, 2012 from 7:30 pm HICKORY – Meet Kingsley, Harold, Orpheus, Violet, May, and Rosalind. These are, of course, the names of Sydney Shepherd’s many instruments and you can meet them all on June 23 from 7:30 pm for the second in this year’s series of Hickory Arts House Concerts, sponsored by Jackson Group’s I’m With the Band: The Mesh (a podcast), featuring singer/songwriter and actress Sydney Shepherd! Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door and can be purchased online or at Hickory Arts. Sydney Shepherd, a Hickory native, began playing cello at the age of seven and her musical pursuits have led her to pick up the banjo, guitar, dulcimer, dulcijo, Celtic harp and piano. Her original songs have been compared to Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michelson and Zooey Deschanel’s “She & Him.” You might know Sydney’s music from events at Warehouse 2120 or Café Gouda. You may have also seen her in area theatre productions over the last fifteen or so years, including plays at Hickory Community Theatre, The Green Room and Queen City Theatre Company in Charlotte (where she performed in “Side Show,” for which she was nominated for a Metrolina Theatre Award for her portrayal of “Violet”). Now 21, Sydney left Saint Stephens High School after her junior year when she was accepted to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts High School Drama Program. She was then accepted into UNCSA’s prestigious college program, received a callback to Juilliard and was accepted into the NYU-Tisch School of the Arts Musical Theatre Program. Shepherd chose to stay at UNCSA where she had fallen in love with the acting program and faculty. Sydney is now about to enter her senior year of college at UNCSA, which was recently named by the Hollywood Reporter as one of the “Top 25 Drama Schools” in the world. Sydney has appeared in a number of student films at UNCSA and was nominated for “Best Actor” in the Beaufort International Film Festival for her role in “ZomRomCom: The Musical!” UNCSA has also given her the opportunity to keep up her music chops. Sydney has composed music for Shakespeare plays, including “As You Like It” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” She also had a brief stint as a rock musician, singing and playing the electric cello in a rock opera version of My Chemical Romance’s “The Black Parade.” She has just returned from New York City where she debuted her original songs at the performance space One Arm Red. She will be returning back to New York in July, where she has been selected out of hundreds of applicants to intern at SPACE on Ryder Farm, an artist collective for creating new work, working alongside playwright Adam Rapp (Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama), composer Stephen Trask (nominated for a Grammy for composing Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and many other exciting artists. Before she heads off to the internship, she’s recording a 5-song EP with Jeff Hartman at Hickory Arts, followed by the house concert. “We never have to look far to find opportunities to boast about Sydney. She’s a perfect example of THE autonomous, original singer/songwriter. She’s self-driven and manages her own talent and skill. She acts, she sings, she writes, she’s well-versed on several instruments and never loses herself to the industry or tries to anticipate it. She’s only influenced by her own desire to create art, ideas and communicate it all. That’s what it’s all about. She embodies what Hickory Arts encourages and teaches and we’re extremely proud to be hosting her house concert on June 23rd!” Hickory Arts is a teaching and production studio dedicated to responding in a personal way to the needs of up and coming artists of all types and ages. The studio is located at 720 Second Avenue SW, Hickory 28602 across from Hickory Optimist Park and behind ITP (where you’ll also find additional parking). For more information about tickets and Hickory Arts, please visit hickoryarts.com/houseconcerts or call 828-291-0509. More information about I’m With the Band: The Mesh can be found at themesh.tv/im-with-the-band. Hickory Arts House Concerts are very intimate. Volunteers to provide food (“pot luck,” if you prefer) for the performer(s) and guests is strongly encouraged. All proceeds always go directly to the artist(s).