Press

InConcert Sierra presents WindSync, a dynamic wind quintet, bringing their unique blend of exceptional artistry, youthful energy, and effervescent programming to Grass Valley on Sunday, March 16, at 2 PM

WindSync is known for connecting with audiences through storytelling, humor, and interaction, making the experience fun and accessible. They are “a group of virtuosos who are also wonderful people, too.” (Alison Young, Classical MPR).

Their program entitled “Taxonomies” reflects this concept by exploring the beauty, complexity, and interconnectedness of nature through music.

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Grass Valley: InConcert Sierra presents the renowned Escher String Quartet, joined by two extraordinary guest artists with deep family ties to the ensemble. This performance blends world-class artistry and personal connections on Sunday, January 19 at 2pm.

The Escher String Quartet, recognized as a BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, has taken the classical music world by storm. With performances ranging from the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall to their role as season artists at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City, the quartet has earned international acclaim for their technical mastery and emotive performances.

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Grass Valley, CA: InConcert Sierra brings the sparkling musical joy of the holidays with Sierra Master Chorale and Orchestra concerts on Saturday evening, December 14, and Sunday afternoon, December 15.

“We’re thrilled to share a joyful program that brings the spirit of the season to life,” says Alison Skinner, music director and conductor of the Sierra Master Chorale (SMC).

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Grass Valley, CA: InConcert Sierra’s sensational opening concert of its Third Sunday series happens on Sunday afternoon, October 20, with the world-class musicianship of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble.

The eight-member chamber ensemble is part of the larger internationally acclaimed London-based Academy of St Martin in the Fields, a chamber orchestra, led by its artistic director Joshua Bell.

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InConcert Sierra and the Sierra Master Chorale present the third annual “Sip ‘n Song” at Pioneer Park on Saturday, October 12 from 3:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

InConcert Sierra and the Sierra Master Chorale had to reschedule the original July date for Sip ‘n Song due to extremely hot weather. Coincidentally, the SMC’s spring concerts were canceled in May because of a Covid outbreak and were rescheduled for the next month, on June 23, 2024.

“This group deserves a big community party after dealing with such unexpected obstacles. We’re ready to sing, dance, and just be together with our friends, families, and supportive community,” said Alison Skinner, SMC Music Director.

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InConcert Sierra (ICS), the center of Nevada County’s arts community for 78 years, is set to build Crown Point Venues, a brand new performing arts facility

Crown Point Venues will feature three spaces designed to accommodate a variety of artistic and community events. First up is Hardin Hall, a 9,360-square-foot shoebox-style concert hall with top-tier acoustics with double wood-framed walls, a 40-foot ceiling, and a 42′ by 51′ stage — ideal for chamber music, orchestral performances, and lectures. The hall will also include a green room, dressing rooms, and a humidity-controlled space for two grand pianos. It will seat around 540 people.

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(Grass Valley, CA)—InConcert Sierra (ICS), a pillar of the arts community in Nevada County, California for 78 years, is making history with the construction of Crown Point Venues, a state- of-the-art facility destined to redefine the cultural landscape of the Sierra Foothills. The visionary project will feature an “acoustically perfect” 540-seat concert hall, a 150-seat black box theater, and a conference center, providing exceptional spaces for music, theater, and community events.

“This venue is a dream come true,” said Ken Hardin, Artistic Director, InConcert Sierra. “For over 10 years, we’ve sought a space where creativity and connection can thrive for generations to come. Crown Point Venues will make our dream a reality, providing world-class facilities for world-renowned talent right here in Nevada County.”

Once built, Crown Point Venues will be a destination for artistic expression and community gathering, featuring three signature spaces:

• Hardin Hall: A breathtaking 9,360-square-foot shoebox concert hall and 42' by 51' stage designed with wood-framed double walls and a 40' ceiling. Equipped with a green room, dressing rooms, and a humidity-controlled space for two grand pianos, Hardin Hall is perfect for chamber music, orchestral performances, dance recitals, lectures, and more.
• Black Box Theater: A completely customizable 2,565-square-foot stage with seating, a 30' ceiling, catwalk system, and black box flooring. The theater also features a control room, two dressing rooms with a green room, scene shop, storage, loading dock, costume maintenance area, and an 850-square-foot rehearsal room.
• Conference Center: This versatile 4,400-square-foot space accommodates up to 400 guests with flexible seating arrangements and a fully equipped catering kitchen. It features A/V and tech support, a portable stage, and breakout rooms for smaller meetings. Designed for both professional and social events, it’s an ideal setting for conferences, film screenings, and special gatherings.

"The ICS project offers a rare acoustically designed venue for music which will be a jewel in the crown of Grass Valley. It will have great appeal to world-class artists and offer a supreme listening environment to diverse audiences,” said Alasdair Fraser, International Touring Musician, Educator, and Recording Artist. “Having a venue with great acoustics is increasingly rare across the Country and this venue will become a beacon for high-quality acoustic concerts.”

Crown Point Venues is the result of a community-driven vision and passionate collaboration among industry experts and dedicated supporters. Doug Mau is the venue's Manager and an entertainment industry veteran with experience at Disney's "Fantasmic" and national tours with the Imagination Movers. The project’s design team includes original contractor Keoni Allen of Sierra Foothills Construction, lead architect Robert Wallis of Wallis Designs, and architect Russell Davidson. Other key contributors include Bay Area theater consultant Rose Steele, acoustician William Chu, lighting designer Devin Cameron, and a range of highly skilled local and regional professionals. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York has also partnered with ICS to support the new venue and help secure the future of classical chamber music.

Fueled by generous contributions, the project has already secured key funding, including:

• $3 million from a California State Specific Grant
• $2 million from an anonymous donor
• $1 million from Dr. George & Jo Ann Rebane (naming the Information and Communication Systems)
• $1 million from Barbara & Denis Drew (naming Hardin Hall)

“Crown Point Venues offers more than just an economic boost to our region – it creates opportunities for our community to engage with the arts in meaningful ways,” said Bob Branstrom, former Grass Valley City Council Member. “The venue allows local residents to participate not only as performers and patrons, but also as students eager to learn and grow in the world of art.”

Crown Point Venues is expected to open during the 2025 season, however, ICS is still looking for donations to help push them past the finish line. To help support the dream of this future iconic space opening, you can donate here.

Tours are given at 1:00pm Pacific on select Saturdays. Please reach out to ICS Administrative Assistant, Micah Cone, micah@inconcertsierra.org for more information or watch a virtual tour here.

For more than ten years InConcert Sierra has been striving to build a natural acoustic concert hall in Western Nevada County.

InConcert Sierra was fortunate enough to secure a 42,000 square foot commercial building at a bargain price, allowing them to expand the concert hall project into a cultural hub for the community.

In 2023, shortly after InConcert purchased the building on Crown Point Court in Grass Valley, heavy snow caused a partial roof collapse.

“The roof collapsing was a blessing in disguise,” Ken Hardin, InConcert Sierra Artistic Director said.

Originally, the plan was to renovate the concert hall first, and construct the black box theater and the conference center in phases which was expected to be a six to ten year process.

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InConcert Sierra celebrated the work crews, managers and owners of some of the companies that are currently working on building the Crown Point Venues, InConcert Sierra’s impressive (42,000 sq.ft.) acoustic concert hall, fully-equipped black box theater and expansive conference center located at 125 Crown Point Court in Grass Valley.

As a thank you for their efforts, the group was treated to a holiday buffet lunch and mini-concert, with InConcert’s Artistic Director Ken Hardin on piano and composer/musician Jerry Grant on saxophone providing some jazzy and holiday tunes.

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Did you have a passion for theater but realized acting wasn’t your forte? That was Rose Steele’s dilemma. Rose is the theater design consultant for the concert hall and black box theater at InConcert Sierra’s Crown Point Venues, performing a critical role on the design team.

After growing up in the Detroit suburbs and starting out in choir in seventh grade and acting in plays, Rose pursued her passion by majoring in theater at Western Michigan University, earning a BS degree. Although she discovered that acting wasn’t her strong suit, she fell in love with the backstage work and everything that happens behind the scenes.

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Why dedicate a career to perfecting the sound quality within enclosed spaces? For William Chu, it wasn’t a planned path, but a compelling curiosity that drew him into the specialized world of acoustic design after college. Now, as the acoustician for InConcert Sierra’s new Crown Point Venues complex in Grass Valley’s Whispering Pines, Chu is using his expertise to create a concert hall where every note will resonate with precision and clarity.

As a kid growing up in the Queens area of New York City, Chu studied violin and piano at the Manhattan School of Music. While performing in youth orchestras, William played in numerous performance venues in New York, as well as in other U.S. and overseas cities, experiencing good and bad acoustics in various concert halls. He thus became quite conscious of the sound within a performance space, especially spaces with poor acoustics.

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How many times in life have you been faced with a big decision and wished there was an expert at hand to act as a sounding board, discuss options, or even make the final decision for you? Some decisions can be confidently made on our own, whereas others are worthy of professional guidance and advice. When InConcert Sierra (ICS) committed to building Crown Point Venues (The Venues), the massive concert hall, black box and conference center project in Whispering Pines, the scope and complexity of the effort became clear, and warranted the advice of an expert. That expert came in the form of Daniel Swartzendruber, owner of Tru-Line Builders, who ICS hired as our Owners Representative.

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Some kids have both the fortitude and the ability at a young age to know and pursue what they want to do when they grow up. That’s Daniel Silva’s fortunate story. He knew he wanted to be a welder, pursued that vocation, and now his company, DS Welding, Inc., is doing all the big steel fabrication and welding on InConcert Sierra’s (ICS) massive concert hall/black box/conference center project.

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Local young man makes good, and what an interesting life he has embarked upon. One of our own, Devin Cameron, who grew up in the area and graduated from Colfax High School, has become a sought-after lighting designer in New York, California, and venues around the world. Now, he is developing the lighting design for InConcert Sierra’s new Crown Point Venues. He is developing the lighting design for the entire 42,000 square foot building, including the complex systems for the 540-seat concert hall and the 150-seat black box theater.

Devin has participated in theater since he was nine, acting and singing, and started doing lighting design at age eleven. At Colfax High School, he was mentored by Erin Beatie and John Deaderick and engaged in both acting and lighting design. During that time, he also designed lighting for The Center for the Arts and the Nevada Theater.

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How might our community make the best use of available space in a high-quality building?

It’s an unusual question, but InConcert Sierra (ICS) had to answer it last year after purchasing a spacious building at a bargain price to create a concert hall for world-class music performances. Once designed, the concert hall occupied less than half of the building’s 42,000 square feet. ICS needed to decide what to do with the remaining space.

ICS reached out to many others in the community—nonprofits, the city and county, and businesses—to find the answer. The consensus was overwhelming: this community needs a large, flexible space for conferences, conventions and emergency events where catered meals can be easily available.

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InConcert Sierra’s Crown Point Events Complex is still under construction, and a new milestone was reached on Monday when 40-foot high steel columns were installed in what will be the main concert hall of the 42,000 square foot building currently being erected on Crown Point Court in Grass Valley.

“These are the steel columns for the 40 foot walls for the concert halls,” said Julie Hardin, Executive Director of InConcert Sierra, gesturing to the newly placed 12-inch rectangular pillars. “It’s pretty exciting because it shows our progress on it, how much further along we’ve come.”

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How might our community make the best use of available space in a high-quality building?

It’s an unusual question, but InConcert Sierra (ICS) had to answer it last year after purchasing a spacious building at a bargain price to create a concert hall for world-class music performances. Once designed, the concert hall occupied less than half of the building’s 42,000 square feet. ICS needed to decide what to do with the remaining space.

ICS reached out to many others in the community—nonprofits, the city and county, and businesses—to find the answer. The consensus was overwhelming: this community needs a large, flexible space for conferences, conventions and emergency events where catered meals can be easily available.

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When I began my career working for Grass Valley Group back in the 80's, my friend and colleague Doug Morgan thought up this company slogan: "Performance and Quality, the P's and Q's of our Success." These words adorned the hallways as a reminder of the pride we took in our team and in the products we built. It's hard to match the sense of satisfaction that comes from being part of a successful team and as we know, team attitude reflects leadership. This maxim rings true at the Crown Point Events Complex construction site, InConcert Sierra's (ICS) massive concert hall, black box and conference center project, where two extremely talented leaders keep everything running like a well-oiled machine. Marc Nelson, site superintendent and program manager for Sierra Foothills Construction Company (SFCC), and Josh Grandell, owner of Clean Cut Construction, are longtime friends and have worked together numerous times. It's fitting that they are joining together again on this very significant project for ICS.

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To a theater person, a “black box” is a little slice of heaven because it’s a flexible space in which one can create any type of performance art. A stage can be placed anywhere in the room, including the center. Seating can be in rows, circles or on two, three or four sides. Lighting can be focused anywhere, and the only backdrops or set pieces seen are what the presenter chooses, since the walls are—yes—just black.

The Grass Valley and Nevada City area is blessed to have a historic, dedicated, traditional theater space, the Nevada Theatre. Smaller shows, when producers want the capability to create different arrangements, are being performed in several local spaces, but none have the ceiling height, seating flexibility and lighting components that can be configured exactly the way the designer chooses. That’s about to change.

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It was raining, it was cold outside, and it was a construction site, but nothing could dampen the warmth, energy and excitement inside, generated by the Raising the Roof event at the new Crown Point Events Complex on Saturday, February 17, hosted by the building’s owner, InConcert Sierra (ICS). The building, purchased by ICS in March 2023, will be an economic, social and artistic boon to the Nevada County community.

More than 150 people attended the invitation-only event, including people who had already made a financial pledge towards the project, those who had volunteered or worked on the project, and those who previously expressed an interest in utilizing the building’s resources once it is completed.

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A week ago Saturday I visited the construction site of the Crown Point Event Complex off Whispering Pines Road. What a wonderful addition this will be to our community! The building was purchased by InConcert Sierra to be the new home for their chamber music performances. The concert hall will be beautiful. What surprised me most was what else there was. There will be a black box theater for stage performances. Included in my tour was a dance group interested in seeing what the space would be like for their shows. There will also be a big convention room with a full kitchen. Imagine how many of our local businesses will benefit from out of the county companies meeting there.

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When InConcert Sierra purchased a large 42,000 square foot building in the Whispering Pines business area of Grass Valley last year to repurpose for a “state-of-the-art” concert hall, there was never a question of who they should enlist for the reconstruction. Keoni Allen’s Grass Valley company, Sierra Foothills Construction Company, had designed the building in 1991 and built it in early 1992 as a claim center for Blue Shield of California. Because hundreds of employees were needed for the claim center, Keoni made sure there was a huge parking lot. After Blue Shield vacated the building, it was ultimately sold to the Grass Valley tech company and Keoni was asked to remodel the building for them in 2014. The remodel was a challenge because he was asked not to disturb the 100 employees working in the building and to complete the work in 120 days! Keoni chuckled as he remarked, “Yeah, that’s the kind of stuff that makes it fun and interesting.”

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What’s going on at 125 Crown Point Court in the Whispering Pines business park? Well, 2023 has been an eventful year thus far. In March, InConcert Sierra (ICS) purchased the 42,000 square foot building formerly occupied by Grass Valley Group, to create the Crown Point Events Complex, a venue that includes a 540-seat acoustic concert hall, a 150-seat multi-configurable black box theater, and a conference center that will seat 300 at banquet tables. Within 37 hours of closing escrow, Mother Nature brought us an unanticipated challenge in the form of a partial roof collapse due to unprecedented snowfall and accumulation. With an outpouring of community support, rapid civic response, and a concerted effort by Sierra Foothill Construction Company (SFCC), C&D Contractors, and the ICS design team, progress since March has been nothing short of astounding. The collapsed areas have been demolished, the roof infrastructure has been reinforced beyond current building codes, and renovation of the entire facility is underway, with a grand opening planned for Fall 2024. Make no mistake, this is a large-scale effort that requires careful planning and coordination. One aspect of this process that goes largely unnoticed, but is nonetheless a key priority, is the reuse and recycling of materials to promote sustainable development.

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InConcert Sierra (ICS) officially broke ground on their 42,000 sq ft facility in the Whispering Pines area on Tuesday. The new venue is slated for an opening in the fall of 2024, with an acoustic concert hall seating 520 guests, a conference center able to accomodate 300 participants and a black box theater for 150 audience members. InConcert Sierra's programs.

ICS’ Executive Director Julie Hardin welcomed community members to the construction site and Board President Hindi Greenberg thanked the project team, the contractors and the staff of ICS.

Ken Hardin, ICS’ Artistic Director and board member Monroe Lovelady serve as the project’s co-leads. Grass Valley Mayor Jan Arbuckle, Nevada County Supervisor and ICS board member Heidi Hall, Nevada County Supervisor Lisa Swarthout, ERC representative Gil Matthew and Yolanda Cookson, representing Assemblymember Megan Dahle rounded out the speakers at the event.

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InConcert Sierra (ICS) hosted a “groundbreaking” ceremony this past Tuesday, August 29, in celebration of the renovations for the new concert venue. Approximately 150 community members attended the event.

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Things are coming right along at the top of Crown Point Circle, where InConcert Sierra is well underway in its plans to transform the nearly 42,00 square foot building into its next concert venue. In addition, plans will include a conference center capable of hosting 300 guests, a full kitchen, and office spaces for InConcert’s staff.

On March 4 of this year, InConcert signed the papers to procure the property which overlooks Grass Valley. 24 hours after the ink dried, several feet of snow fell on the building and collapsed the structure of the roof. What could be considered a major setback has set InConcert into motion, propelling them to what they hope will be a beacon for event spaces in the Grass Valley/Nevada City area.

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Unfortunately, many businesses suffered through the snowstorms that plagued Nevada County this winter.

However, very few have a story quite like that of InConcert Sierra, who on March 3 closed on the purchase of a $2 million building on Crown Point Court in Grass Valley — which is intended to serve as a community conference center and concert hall — amassing nearly 42,000 square feet.

Less than a day after the papers were signed Mother Nature made her presence known and dropped feet of heavy snow on the structure leading its roof to collapse.

“It was about 24 hours after we purchased it,” said Barbara Drew, Board Supervisor of InConcert Sierra. “We bought in on a Friday and it happened that weekend. And it just happened to be discovered; there was no one working on the weekend but there was a guy from Grass Valley Group who wanted to use the shower there. He liked the shower better here than the one at his home. And he came in on a Sunday morning and noticed that the roof collapsed. We said, ‘Are you kidding me? We just bought it!’”

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InConcert Sierra has been working on creating the Crown Point Events Complex that will include an elegant acoustic concert hall, black box theater, and conference center. The building to be renovated is a 41,000 square foot building in the Whispering Pines Business Park.

On Friday, March 3, InConcert Sierra celebrated the close of escrow on the building. On Saturday, March 4, sometime during the night, the building suffered a partial roof collapse estimated to be about 2400 square feet or 5% of the roof area.

There were no injuries nor was anyone in the building at the time of collapse. The building has been secured and the city, county, and ICS contractors have been engaged.

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“Some dreams are worth chasing—no matter how long it takes to bring them to life.”

So begins the background letter drafted by InConcert Sierra when announcing their intentions to open a concert hall and conference center in the Whispering Pines business park area.

In a meeting to be held Tuesday evening, Grass Valley’s city council will meet to discuss the planned project which InConcert’s executive director, Julie Hardin, said would serve as not only a space for music and music education but would offer full event facilities including a commercial kitchen.

“It’s the biggest project as far as the arts go,” said Hardin. “This one is multi-faceted and has the potential to impact our community.”

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