Leadership Music alumni recently participated in Family Night at Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, one of Leadership Music’s annual community outreach projects. The participants sorted food for the food bank, which serves 46 middle Tennessee counties.

Pictured (L-R): LM alums Chandra LaPlume, Carey Nelson Burch, LM Executive Director Debbie Linn, Lori Condon, President/CEO of Second Harvest and LM board member Jaynee Day, Stacy Widelitz and Jay Frank

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CBSSports.com and ACM Lifting Lives are partnering to create a celebrity fantasy football sweepstakes benefitting ACM Lifting Lives, the charitable arm of the Academy of Country Music. By making a donation to the charity, Country music fans can enter to win the opportunity to play in a CBSSports.com Fantasy Football Commissioner league with a Country star, including Sara Evans, Jana Kramer, Darius Rucker, Little Big Town’s Jimi Westbrook, Chris Young, Florida Georgia Line, Love and Theft and Montgomery Gentry. Visit www.ACMLiftingLives.org before Aug. 9 to make a donation and enter the sweepstakes.

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The 2nd Building Bridges Golf Tournament presented by the Juri Bunetta Friendship Foundation will be Oct. 6 at Fairvue Plantation Golf and Country Club in Gallatin, Tenn. The foundation was started by Dawn and Al Bunetta in memory of their son Juri.

 The tournament will benefit Safe Haven Family Shelter, which helps the homeless, teens in crisis and others with life changing emergencies.

 The Building Bridges event also includes a silent auction, online auction and dinner. Details, registration and sponsorship opportunities at www.jbfriendship.org.

City Winery Nashville, an intimate 300-seat concert hall, restaurant and fully functional winery, will celebrate its Grand Opening on Wednesday, October 1, following a soft launch in September. The venue is at 609 LaFayette St. in the SoBro district.
As its introduction to Music City, City Winery has partnered with the Americana Music Association’s Honors & Awards to host the event’s official VIP after party on Wednesday, Sept. 17, along with a full calendar of shows during the Americana Music Festival. The venue will also serve as the after-party location for the second annual Music City Food + Wine Festival. 
City Winery founder and CEO Michael Dorf said, “We’ve been eyeing Nashville for a long time and we’re thrilled to finally become a part of its flourishing cultural and culinary scene. The heart of City Winery is its music and what better place than Music City to showcase all types of music in a unique, upscale setting with fine wine and food. We can’t wait to open our doors and provide our guests with a one-of-a-kind concert and dining experience.”
The initial calendar of events has been announced. The line up and details about the ‘VinoFile’ program is available at citywinery.com/nashville.

Trailblazing musician and three-time Grammy winner Ralph Stanley has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in a class that also includes actor and director Al Pacino, novelists John Irving and Annie Proulx, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and oceanographer and discoverer of the Titanic, Robert Ballard.
Stanley will be inducted formally into the Academy at its headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Oct. 11. The Academy was founded in 1780 to recognize America’s foremost “thinkers and doers.” Among its past members are George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Martin Luther King Jr. Current members include more than 250 Nobel laureates and 60 Pulitzer Prize-winners.
In May, Stanley was awarded an honorary doctor of music degree from Yale University. It was his second such distinction, the first having been conferred in 1976 by Lincoln Memorial University.
Recognized as the leading exponent of traditional Appalachian music and a founding father of bluegrass, Stanley has spread his sound around the world during his 68 years of touring and recording. He began his career in 1946 as the younger half of the Stanley Brothers, a group then headed by singer-songwriter Carter Stanley. The Stanley Brothers performed, recorded and appeared on television together until Carter’s death in 1966. In 2000, Stanley’s popularity skyrocketed with the success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
Last summer, Stanley launched his farewell tour, billed as Man of Constant Sorrow Tour: The Dr.’s Farewell, however his website now states, “Dr. Ralph Stanley will NOT be retiring this year. Even though this was the original plan, Dr. Stanley still is feeling great and going strong.”
Stanley states, “God has had his hand on my career for the past 68 years. It’s up to him when I will quit. I have no plans of slowing down. I love my fans, and I love performing.”
Carry on, brother.