The hills will be alive with the sound of music this weekend, as the 10th annual Indiana State Fingerstyle Festival returns to the Brown County Playhouse.

The festival, one of eight of its kind in the world, will welcome around 20 contestants who will compete for a custom-made Thomas Roeger guitar, valued at $5,500, as well as the opportunity to play in the evening show with International Championship winners Jack Wilson and Mark Sganga.

Each year, between 20 and 30 contestants gather to share their skills in fingerstyle. The one requirement is they cannot use a guitar pick; they must play with their fingers. Any style of music can be played: jazz to classical, country ballads to Christmas carols.

Contestants will draw random numbers on the day of the competition which will determine the order of their performances. At each turn, they have a five-minute opportunity to play two songs for the judges, who are sequestered and listening from a room in the Playhouse. They don’t know who the performers are.

From the first group, the top five are chosen. The top three receive trophies and custom-built guitars. Winners will come back that night to play in the Saturday night concert alongside the judges.

Local musicians Chuck Wills and Kara Barnard started working on the festival and competition around 11 years ago, believing that the acoustic heritage of the area would go hand in hand with the artistic scene of Brown County.

“The music scene goes way back to the beginning (of Brown County)” Wills said. “There were ‘pickin’ parties’ on front porches, Bill Monroe and the whole bluegrass legacy — it’s so important to this area.”

Wills said when he thinks of the musicians in Brown County, there’s a “huge focus” on acoustic music.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a mandolin player, fiddle or a banjo,” he said. “There are plenty of great acoustic musicians.”

Both Wills and Barnard had an interest in fingerstyle guitar.

The festival is accredited with the International Fingerstyle Festival based out of Kansas. Before COVID and international travel restrictions, artists were brought in from England, Israel, Turkey and Japan. This year, the artists are stateside, but will still travel to take part in the event.

Wills said the whole intent of the festival is to come together and make music. They hope that the community will take part in the festival, offering a free night of music at Brown County Inn on Friday, July 30 before the festival on Saturday.

Thanks to sponsorship from Nashville Spice Company, Arts Village Brown County and House Concerts at Hondo’s, the competition and concert on Saturday will be streamed in high definition on Facebook Live and YouTube, for those not able to be a part of the audience.

James and Betsy Oblack, former owners of the Muddy Boots Cafe and the Pine Room Tavern, helped out in the beginning, Wills said. They’ve also received support from the Brown County Inn, which also serves as an anchor location for everything that is not at the Playhouse.

Lawrence Glassblowers has provided the trophies for the winners each year and Thomas Roeger and Scott Campbell provide the guitars. Without the additional volunteers, Wills said they wouldn’t be able to do it.

Since its inception, the festival has been at the Brown County Playhouse — that is until last year, when COVID put their plans on hold.

“It was gut-wrenching,” Wills said of canceling the 2020 festival. “We start registration around the new year. It was gut-wrenching to call everybody and tell them we weren’t going to do it. It was hard.” They did a two-hour online concert in partnership with Rainwater Studios last year instead.

Though it was a big decision to make this year’s festival happen, Wills said that it is representative of the resiliency of those involved.

“We’re just thrilled to be able to do it this year,” he said. “It feels like a real victory.”

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What: 10th annual Indiana State Fingerstyle Guitar Festival

Where: Brown County Playhouse, 70 S. Van Buren St.

When: Saturday, July 31, preliminary competition from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., evening finals and concert from 7:30 to 9 p.m. There’s also a Friday night party at 7 p.m. at the Brown County Inn.

Tickets: $16.50 for daytime tickets, $24.50-$34.50 for evening tickets, browncountyplayhouse.org.

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