| By Kurt Dusterberg |
When Raleigh Wide Open kicks off in the fall, the two-day event should feel very familiar to music fans.
The celebration will take place downtown along Fayetteville Street on Friday, October 3 and Saturday, October 4. If that sounds a bit like the IBMA World of Bluegrass that made its home in Raleigh each year since 2013, you’ve got the idea.
Think of Raleigh Wide Open as the spinoff.
When World of Bluegrass moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee for 2025, Raleigh nonprofit PineCone, an organization dedicated to the preservation of roots music, stepped in with an event of its own after producing previous World of Bluegrass events. “We really want to build on that success,” says David Brower, PineCone’s executive director. “The community really embraced the music and the big street festival that happens up and down Fayetteville Street.”
While the previous festivals focused mostly on bluegrass, Raleigh Wide Open will expand the field to include Americana, folk, gospel, and blues performers. “Everybody can hear something that speaks to their experience,” Brower says.
The new festival will focus on artists from North Carolina, where much of Appalachian traditional music originated. In particular, the lineup will include an emphasis on acts from the 26 counties most affected by Hurricane Helene last September.
“A lot of the music is rooted in the Piedmont—whether it’s blues or gospel or bluegrass or old time,” Brower says. “It’s participatory by its very nature. It’s meant to be played as much as it’s meant to be listened to. All of the tunes that you’ll hear if you come out to Raleigh Wide Open can be played by just about anybody at a very simple level.”
For more than 40 years, PineCone has focused on preserving the tradition. That includes square dancing, which will take place each evening at the Martin Street Stage. “Reach out to a stranger standing next to you, grab their hand and swing for a little bit,” Brower says. “That’s what you do during a square dance. They’re called and taught on the spot. So as long as you can follow directions and stay relatively in time, you can do it. There’s no experience required, and it’s super fun.”
The event will include more than 30 acts playing on six stages. The performances are free, but there will be ticketed shows each night at Red Hat Amphitheater. Food trucks, beverages, and an art market will round out the experience.
“We’re here to enrich people’s lives by bringing them together around music that is both accessible and entertaining,” Brower says. “And for us, that means string bands—fiddles, banjos, guitars, and mandolins.”
Meyer brings passion, versatility to American traditional music
When Eliza Meyer takes the stage at Raleigh Wide Open, she will be one of the longest-tenured musicians connected to the IBMA World of Bluegrass days. Pretty impressive for someone who is still in college.
Meyer, a rising senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been a regular performer since her childhood, when she appeared on the Junior Appalachian Musicians (JAM) stage. “I got to play the music I wanted to play for people who wanted to see it,” she says.
Meyer’s music education started early. She began with classical lessons at age 6, then discovered a love for traditional music. “My mom grew up in Appalachia and was a lover of traditional music her whole life, and she played that for me at home, as well as Southern gospel,” she says. “That’s what was available in the car and what we listened to.”
Meyer has performed in a bluegrass ensemble at UNC, but she does not call herself a bluegrass artist. “I grew up influenced by Appalachian music, string band, square dance music, and traditional music,” she says. “That’s what I try to focus on with my music and repertoire. Stylistically, I much prefer American traditional music.”
After starting on the fiddle, Meyer took up the banjo at age 13. Soon, she was participating in summer camp intensives with the great North Carolina players. She became a fan of the pioneering women of bluegrass, including Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard. While attending Broughton Magnet High School here in Raleigh, she gained classical training, eventually adding operatic and jazz vocals in college.
“I loved learning about that type of vocal music and what the voice can do as an instrument,” she says. “That training has made a huge difference. It’s made me a better singer all around. It makes you a stronger singer.”
With a wealth of training under her belt, she recorded her first album, Hello Stranger, at age 17. She’s now looking ahead to her next challenge. “College has offered me an opportunity to improve fundamentally as a musician. The next thing I record will be a more updated reflection of who I am as a musician, because I’ve had time to grow into an adult.”
No matter how Meyer refines her musical skills, don’t expect to find her on tour one day. As an American studies major, she anticipates a career involving academic research on historic preservation or American culture and history.
“I’ve made the conscious choice not to make a primary living as a musician,” she says. “The academic aspect of music history and cultural history is what I get enthusiastic about,” she says. “I’m really happy to just have my music be for pleasure. I think there’s plenty of success to be had without making it my day job.”
