By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Downtown Hays Development Corporation is sponsoring a free summer concert series at the Downtown Pavilion titled Bach’s Lunch on the Bricks.

The name for the series is a riff on the composer Bach and the fact box lunches will be offered at all the concerts.

The first concert will be noon to 1 p.m. Thursday. A box lunch of a cobb salad will available from Gella’s Diner at a cost of $10. To guarantee a box lunch, email DHDC at [email protected] or call 785-621-4171 by 5 p.m. today. A limited number of lunches will be available without reservations the day of the event. Payment needs to be made to the DHDC.

People are also welcome to bring their own lunches out. The Madd Matter Frame Shop will provide water.

Kay Werth with the Hays Symphony Orchestra worked with the DHDC to organize music for the series.

The first performer will be Polka on the Plains with Joe Dolezal.

Sara Bloom, DHDC executive director, said the music series will present diverse music styles.

“The beauty of the music series is people are going to be able to hear everything from polka to jazz to orchestral to rock ‘n’ roll to just a guy with a guitar,” Bloom said. “We really wanted to make this series eclectic, so not matter what your music preference was there would be something for you.

“We also wanted to make it eclectic so we could expose people to different kinds of music they maybe hadn’t been exposed to before. We are also encouraging families to come out and have their kids listen to different types of music they maybe have not been exposed to.”

There is seating along the rock wall of the pavilion, but if you want a chair, you will need to bring your own.

“We want this to be a community gathering time,” Bloom said. “We want this to be a fun time to gather with the community, talk, visit and enjoy music.”

The concert series will continue on the first and third Thursdays in June and July and first, third and fifth Thursdays in August.

The complete list of performers for the series are below.

Thursday, June 7	Joe Dolezal & friends	Polkas on the Plains
Thursday, June 21	High Plains Double Reed Consort	Bassoons in the Breeze
Thursday, July 5	Tom Pfeifer – Acoustic Guitar	“Back Porch” Songs & Stories
Thursday, July 19	Vadre	instrumental funk-jazz-electro
Thursday, August 2	Brad Dawson/Luke Johnson	Jazz Duo
Thursday, August 16	Ralph Thummel, Susan Bowles, Kay Werth	Your favorite vocal duets
Thursday, August 30	Ion & Mike Slattery	Slattery Irish Duo

This story was updated 10:05 a.m. Tuesday, June 5.