BY MARY ELLE HUNTER

Special to The Pilot

Musically, a style for almost every taste can be heard at the fourth annual Palustris Festival.

Talented musicians from Sandhills Community College and from Pinecrest High School will each appear in concert during the five-day span of the festival from March 20-24, with a variety of other groups from choral ensembles to jazz musicians to performers specializing in bluegrass and acoustic country also on the schedule.

Under the direction of Derrick Foskey, the Pinecrest High School Orchestra will present a pops concert featuring movie and video game music, Broadway classics and music from artists like Smash Mouth, Evanescence and Aerosmith on Thursday, March 21.

A popular venue for distinctive and innovative music in Aberdeen is The Rooster's Wife, which is hosting the trio Mamajowali Thursday, March 21, at 6:45 p.m. at Poplar Knight Spot.

On Friday, March 22, New York duo Maura and Pete Kennedy will perform at the Spot, and Sunday, March 24, Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen play a concert featuring a wide variety of new acoustic American roots music focusing on bluegrass and acoustic country, with blues, folk, swing and jazz.

The Longleaf Cultural Theatre Ensemble presents Southern gospel and Sandhills blues with Rod Brower and Together-N-Unity Choir in a Saturday, March 23, performance set in a Civil War-era church and featuring "Jump Jim Crow," a musical sketch about the only successful coup d'etat in American history that happened right here in North Carolina.

Other programs presented for the festival by the ensemble include photographer/filmmaker Brady Beck; composer/guitarist Ryan Book; singer/songwriter Abigail Dowd; composer Adam Halstead; writer Ray Owen; choreographer Diana Turner-Forte and RisingPhoenix; and photographer Caroline Young.

Through cutting-edge theatrical productions, the aim of the ensemble is telling stories that matter..

At the Aberdeen Recreation Station on Saturday night, March 23, learn about "History of Beach Music and the Shag."

The Moore County Choral Society Ensemble draws its membership from the society through auditions. The MCCS Ensemble represents the choral society by performing several times each year. The ensemble will perform choral music of varying historical periods and genres in a late afternoon concert on Saturday, March 23.

The Sunrise Theater brings two Moore County boys home to rock the house on Saturday, March 23, as Justin and Ryan Harris, otherwise known as McKenzies Mill, take the stage.

The Wolff Brothers will once again join forces on two grand pianos to present an evening of exceptional jazz, Sunday, March 24. New Yorker Joshua Wolff and David Michael Wolff, conductor of the Carolina Philharmonic, both began their studies as classical pianists. For the past two decades, they've pursued parallel careers as performing artists worldwide, and this is only the second time they've given a concert together.

For detailed information on performance venues, ticket prices and where and how to obtain tickets for the individual performances go to the Palustris Festival website, www. palustrisfestival.com.