Timeless Love Songs At Festival Hill Library Concert February 14

Everyone needs a little love and love songs can help. Saturday, Feb. 14, you can get a little love from the concert hall stage of Round Top Festival Institute. The family of Dick Smith carry on this tradition with a 3 p.m. concert.

This year it will be Timeless Love Songs. The concert supports the Festival Institute’s Faith P. and Charles L. Bybee Library and Study Center. Tickets are $30 for adults and $10 for students. They can be purchased online at www.festivalhill.org or by calling the Festival office at (979) 249-3129. Carrying on in his uncle Dick Smith’s footsteps and musical tradition, Will Lynde from Nashville will be performing along with a star-studded cast of family members including Ryan Smith, Dick’s brother J. Gary Smith, grandson Grayson Levee, and Will’s brother Justin. Plenty of love songs will be on the program including “At Last” by Etta James, “Sweet Caroline” made famous by Neil Diamond and songs by The Beatles, Norah Jones, and Stevie Wonder. Joining the Dick Smith family are Mary Moore and Peter King, two incredibly talented Nashville performers to help round out the show.

Will Lynde is a Nashvillebased singer-songwriter and performer from Houston. He was a regular in the ensemble casts of Stratford High School’s musicals and played the lead role in Will Roger’s Follies his senior year. In 2012, he was invited by Dick Smith to his first performance at Festival Hill. At Belmont University, he began writing and playing with a wide variety of Nashville artists which led him to win Belmont’s Country Showcase competition with Baylor Wilson in 2015 and the Rock Showcase competition with Forest Fire Gospel Choir in 2016. In 2020, he released his first single as a solo artist and since then he has released several other collections of music including “The Texas Breeze” and “The Calm.” Since 2021, he has been touring around the world, playing keys for Kip Moore in many countries across Europe, South Africa, Australia, Japan, and all over the US. His newest single “Where the Wind Blows” will be released on Feb. 19 Returning this year is Dick Smith’s daughter Ryan Smith. Ryan grew up singing standards and show tunes alongside her father and began formal training at the age of 8. She performed in her first professional theatre show at the age of 11 and went on to attend the High School for the Performing and Visuals Arts in Houston. She studied musical theater at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in NYC. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the music industry, playing in several venues such as The Roxy, The Whiskey and The Viper Room. Ryan moved back to Texas to be closer to family and began performing in Austin with theatres such as ZACH, The Georgetown Palace, and Trinity Street Players.

“The Round Top Festival Institute gratefully acknowledges the 22 years of musical performance donated by Dick Smith and family in support of the Festival Institute Bybee Library. The funds received through these concerts have tremendously impacted the growth and maintenance of the Festival Library collections” stated Library and Museum Collections Curator Lamar Lentz.

Attendees are invited to join staff and the musicians on stage for a reception with scrumptious culinary treats from the Festival Hill Kitchen and a chance to win a signed copy of Festival Hill at Fifty, The History of Round Top Festival Institute.

The Library Concert and reception is funded in part through a generous donation from the HEB Community Investment Program. Helping communities for more than 100 years, HEB has continued their valued support for the arts by contributing to the Festival Institute’s Bybee Library Annual Valentine’s Concert and Adopt-A-Book program for over 9 years.

After the concert there will also be an opportunity to participate in the ever popular Adopt-a-Book program. This gives attendees a chance to view and donate a book of your choice, ranging from $20 to $250 dollars, to be placed in The Bybee Library at Festival Hill. Tip: Give a lasting and meaningful Valentine gift to your significant other by adopting a book in her/his honor. A special bookplate will be added in the book in memory of someone, in honor of someone, to mark a special occasion or anniversary or just to support the library. It is a good chance to see the books being acquired for the Bybee Library at Festival Hill.

The Faith P. and Charles L. Bybee Library, named for early Round Top preservationists and philanthropists, is a regional repository with a dedicated emphasis on music, and the arts and humanities. Round Top Festival Institute has long been active in collecting books on Texas history, Fayette County, art, architecture, and decorative arts with the intent to establish a world class research, study, and reference library. It actively collects and preserves rare books, manuscripts, photographs, archival materials, recordings, works of art and houses the personal library of Texas historian and former Texas State Librarian, Dr. Dorman Winfrey and The Faith P. and Charles L. Bybee Collection. The Library is by appointment only. You can also access the Library book catalog of over 11,000 volumes online at http://festivalhill. org/library/index.php.

You can support the Library by purchasing a ticket for the concert, with your monetary donation or the adopt-a-book program. To donate, go to festivalhill.org and specify Library.

For more information, contact Lamar Lentz, Library and Museum Collections Curator, at lamarl@festivalhill. org or call the Institute office at (979) 249-3129 ext. 20 and leave a message.