PHOTOS: BETA Youth Music Showcase

Scout Baldwin, 9, and Cypress Baldwin, 11, performed the Bill Monroe bluegrass piece "Jerusalem Ridge" as well as "I'll Fly Away" at the Youth Music Showcase to support BETA on March 7. Sara Clifford | The Democrat

About a week before COVID-19 changed the way the nation celebrates and entertains, more than 200 people gathered at the Brown County Playhouse to applaud local youth and raise money for youth programs.

More than a dozen performers appeared on the stage, most of them students of Brown County musician Kara Barnard. Teens from BETA, the after-school youth program which this event was benefiting, also performed. Guitar lessons are part of their after-school programming at the Brown County YMCA.

Barnard has been teaching Brown County musicians for decades. She’d taught some of the parents of these students, too; in fact, several performers were part of musical families in blues, bluegrass and many other genres.

“Everybody on the stage with me tonight, they’re the loves of my life,” Barnard said.

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