Get ready for a real showdown at Country Roads 2017

From left: Spencer Manuelpillai – Dilmah,  Nanda Wanninayaka – Horizon Lanka Foundation, Teresa Santos – Cargills (Ceylon),  Dishnika Perera – Mount Lavinia Hotel, Feizal Samath – President of the Country Music Foundation, Anne Perera – LOLC and Chammika Weerasinghe – HNB

South Asia's and Sri Lanka's longest running concert for children, Country Roads, returns once more to the historic Mount Lavinia Hotel in 2017. This year's show is its landmark 29th anniversary edition. 

To be held on 19 March from 6:30 p.m. onward, this year's show features its usual list of Country and Folk luminaries, from the Maverick Duo (Dirk and Wolfgang) from Germany, to UK's Astrid Brook, and Sri Lanka's own Cosmic Rays. 

However, in addition, Country Roads is truly honored to welcome legendary "Wandering Minstrel", Australian Keith Potger, a founder of international hit-makers "The Seekers", to the 2017 show. “The Seekers” first stormed the UK charts in 1965, and have only grown in popularity and stature since then. 

In 2017, the concert is being supported by HNB, Dilmah, Cargills, Dialog, BBDO, LOLC, SriLankan Airlines, CPR, Firefly and Host Hotel Mount Lavinia Hotel, with tickets already available at Cargills Food City outlets in Kohuwela, Rajagiriya (Parliament Road), Kirulapone, Staple Street, Majestic City, Mount Lavinia and Katubedde (Big City). 

A wholly charitable undertaking, staffed fully by volunteers, the Country Roads concert for children has so far donated all its proceeds to children's charities in Sri Lanka. To date, the concert series has raised several million rupees, all of which has gone directly to provide aid to only the most pressing of causes that help children, a common practice since its beginnings in 1988. 

In 2015, the concert contributed to Meth Mihira, a Special Education school in Koralawella, Moratuwa run by the Sisters’ Of Charity, as well as the Children’s Heart Project of Sri Lanka, which supports the Lady Ridgeway Children’s Hospital. It also provided musical equipment to the Kudaligama Central College in Kalutara. 

Previously, the concert gifted Rs. 500,000 to Save the Children Sri Lanka, to support its mother-and-child program on local plantations in 2014. The same year, another Rs. 100,000 was given to the Oxonian Heart Foundation, to help treat impoverished and destitute children suffering from heart disease, while a further Rs. 100,000 was handed over to a poor family caring for a special needs child. To mark its landmark 25th anniversary in 2013, a million rupees was donated to aid in a special UNICEF project.

"Now 29 years young, the Country Roads concert for children is not just going strong, it is getting bigger and better. This year, 'Seekers' founder Keith Portger joins us for the very first time. At the same time, we continue our exclusive, VIP dinner where guests interact one-on-one with our talented artistes, a unique initiative in its second year that has significantly increased our charitable giving. But most important of all, we have continued to put all our energies towards creating the most authentic and fulfilling Country, Western and Folk show for lovers of these genres, one that is mainly geared to provide entertainment for every member of your family. Get ready for a real showdown, and come join us when we return to the Mount Lavinia Hotel on Sunday, March 9, from 6.30 p.m. onward," said Feizal Samath, the President of the Country Music Foundation, the organiser of the Country Roads concert for children.