Moving Mountains Voices of Appalachia Rise Up Against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining There will be a benefit concert for Appalachian Voices on Saturday, November 6 at 8:00 pm at the Linville Falls Theater in Plemmons Student Union on the Appalachian State University campus. This event will feature musicians from the Moving Mountains CD Project. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. This event is dedicated to stopping the ongoing devastation of mountains and communities in the coalfields of southern and central Appalachia by mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining. The Moving Mountains: Voices of Appalachia Rise Up Against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining CD recently released by independent record label Falling Mountain Music features 13 songs from artists inspired by the threatened Appalachian landscape as well as interviews with 6 local residents. Three of the featured musicians, Andrew McKnight, Keith & Joan Pitzer and Than & Mary Anne Hitt, will perform during the concert. A growing coal industry practice in the remote hills and hollows of West Virginia, Kentucky and southwest Virginia, MTR permanently destroys mountains, river and stream valleys, and small communities in mined areas. Entire mountaintops and ridgelines are literally sliced off to allow easy access to the underlying coal seam. The resulting “overburden,” consisting of dirt, topsoil, vegetation, rocks and destroyed trees, is then dumped into the valleys and streams nearby. These “valley fills” have buried forever nearly 1,000 miles of rivers and streams in West Virginia alone. As a result, catastrophic flooding has become all too familiar downstream of mined areas. One of the musicians from the CD project who will perform at the concerts, Mary Anne Hitt, also serves as the executive director of Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit organization working to end mountaintop removal that will receive the proceeds from the concerts. Hitt says, “I wrote this song because music is such a powerful way to connect with people, and the story of mountaintop removal needs to be told. I grew up in east Tennessee and I love the southern mountains, so I’m honored to be part of such an outstanding project that will help tackle the biggest environmental and human rights catastrophe Appalachia has ever seen.” Two of Falling Mountain’s artists are included on the CD. Singer/songwriter, poet and activist Andrew McKnight contributes the lead track “Company Town” from his latest CD Turning Pages, while West Virginians Keith & Joan Pitzer from the Cheat River Valley penned “Underneath a Blackened Moon” especially for this project. For more information or to purchase tickets, please contact Appalachian Voices at 828-262-1500.