New City Notes

Dear Friends,

After nearly ten years of work in Knoxville’s Old City District, New City is pleased to announce a merging of interests in the form of a new partnership in historic downtown Knoxville’s Market Square, opening Fall 2007.

Since 1997, and in two different locations, New City has cultivated a sense of community among faith-based artists and their audiences and also worked to equip people for marketplace integration.  It has been a wonderful decade rich in relationships and bridge-building.  We remain overwhelmed with God’s presence and provision through the years.  We are especially grateful to you: the many people who brought life to New City through thousands of hours of volunteer help, sacrificial financial support, enthusiastic participation, and Spirit-inspired creativity.

As a way of marking these ten years—closing out one season and preparing for another—we will gather on April 24 at Fellowship Church (www.fefc.com) for a very special evening of celebration and dedication. Of course, New City can’t do anything without music. So a gaggle of incredibly gracious and gifted folk will descend on Knoxville to help us out: Alathea, Ed Cash, Randall & Amy Goodgame, Jill Phillips & Andy Gullahorn, Matthew Perryman Jones, Ryan Long, Andy Osenga, and Andrew Peterson. This is an unprecedented gathering of some of the best singer-songwriters of our generation, a genuinely unique event that will serve as a fitting close to New City.

Tickets are available on line at www.etix.com.  All proceeds will go to facilitate New City's transition from the Old City to Market Square. We hope you will join us for this important occasion.

In order to better prepare for our future, the Café has now closed.  Our final week at the end of January pulled a great gathering of local musicians who have long looked to New City as a friendly space in which to explore their faith and express their artistic giftedness. New City will continue our Marketplace Cohort series this March 30-31 with Professor Paul Williams, www.regent-college.edu (details below) and we will host the Ninth Annual Singer-Songwriter Contest, Wednesday-Thursday, April 11-12 (upstairs at Patrick Sullivans on the corner of Jackson & Central) with the winner performing live at the April 24th Benefit concert.

There is a lot more to say about the shape and character of our future involvement at Market Square.  For now, I’ll leave you with an image.  When a woman marries she oftentimes drops her maiden name and assumes the name of her husband.  In this manner, for purposes higher than herself, she aligns her passions with another and develops in very new ways that nonetheless draw deeply from the well of who she was and will always be. Something new from something old. Selah.