Wild Center to Host Free WildFest ’07 Festival

AMERICAN MUSICAL LEGEND RALPH STANLEY TO HEADLINE

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American musical legend Ralph Stanley. Photo by Jim McGuire.

TUPPER LAKE, NY (06/04/2007)(readMedia)-- The Wild Center/Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks will host the second annual WildFest on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 under the big tent on its 31-acre campus. Legendary American musician and multiple Grammy Award winner Ralph Stanley will headline this free, day-long festival. WildFest ’07 begins at 10:00 a.m. and concludes at 4:00 p.m. so visitors can get home in time for evening fireworks.

“This July 4th marks a year since the Wild Center opened, and the second annual WildFest ’07 is a great way for families and friends to enjoy a fun-filled day of free activities at the Museum in the heart of the beautiful Adirondack Park,” said Stephanie Ratcliffe, managing director of the Wild Center. “We are so fortunate to have Ralph Stanley as our musical headliner. Ralph’s an incredible country-bluegrass artist, whose music will make for a special part of the WildFest festivities.”

Ralph Stanley’s work includes the movie soundtrack for O’ Brother Where Art Thou?, which won multiple Grammy Awards. In 2000, he became the first artist to be inducted into the historic Grand Ole Opry in the new millennium. He holds the Living Legend award from the Library of Congress and was the first recipient of the Traditional American Music award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. For additional information on Ralph Stanley, visit www.ralphstanley.net.

Other artists scheduled to appear include Martin Sexton, who brought down the house at last year’s WildFest with his renderings of America the Beautiful and the national anthem. The New York Times praised Sexton’s appeal as a “blue-eyed soul singer” whose “…unpretentious heartiness helps him focus on every soul singer's goal: to amplify the sound of the ordinary heart.”

WildFest ’07 visitors can also be among the first to experience the Museum’s new Wings over the Adirondacks bird-themed programs. Accordingly to Ratcliffe, “Wild Center staff traveled the country meeting with some of the nation’s top ornithologists, including experts from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Their input has helped shape Wings over the Adirondacks. In fact, the public is invited to join in on a number of WildFest ’07 activities designed to make the Museum’s campus a better place for birds.”

WildFest ’07 will feature a preview of the Wild Center’s new Bird Skywalk and Skytowers which will be part of the Wings over the Adirondacks experience. When the Skywalk is complete in 2008 it will showcase nearly 100 bird exhibits, and will take visitors up to the top of the tree canopy.

Also part of WildFest ’07 will be a children’s tent featuring the Zucchini Brothers, a musical group lauded as "the Beatles of kid music,” and a Bird Tent where birding organizations allow visitors to see the world of birds. The day will include free native plants giveaways and free flight bird shows with live birds. Construction tours will be also offered of the Wild Center’s new BioBuilding, expected to be the greenest building in the Adirondacks.

North Country Public Radio is the media sponsor for WildFest ‘07. For more information on WildFest ’07, the Wings over the Adirondacks experience and the Wild Center, visit www.wildcenter.org or call the Museum directly at (518) 359-7800.

The Wild Center is a new kind of natural history museum that mixes the indoor and outdoors in unusual ways. There are waterfalls inside, and exhibit labels in the woods outside. Hiking trails outside the Wild Center are like museum exhibit halls, except they are in the forest, with labels that trained staff can change daily. Live otter and bird sounds mix with the splashing cascade of falling water from a trout-filled stream. Films from field scientists doing research in the Adirondacks showcase the world that surrounds the Museum. The Wild Center is open year round.

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Contact:

Lela R. Katzman Full Spectrum Communications (518) 785-4416 fsclela@verizon.net