Henderson Area Arts Alliance hopes Grant concert helps it turn pandemic audience corner

A childhood dream just might get fulfilled Sunday night for Natalie Singer, executive director of the Henderson Area Arts Alliance.

She just might, if the stars stay aligned, get to meet someone she grew up listening to on the radio: “The Queen of Christian pop” music Amy Grant.

Grant is scheduled to perform Sunday evening as part of the performing arts season that Singer’s organization plans and presents at Preston Arts Center, located on the campus of Henderson Community College.

It should be a memorable evening, not just for Singer personally, but for HAAA, which has been fighting to regain its audience momentum after the COVID-19 pandemic turned absolutely everything upside down.

The potential is there for a dream evening, with this show nearing a sell-out for a HAAA event at the PAC for the first time during Singer’s tenure.

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For most of that time, live audiences were either not possible, restricted or simply slow to return to being in a shoulder-to-shoulder auditorium.

“People have been more comfortable this season,” Singer said, noting that now when she takes the stage to welcome the audience and start the show, there have been fewer and fewer empty seats. It’s heartening, she said.

“That’s the moment I want to see,” she added. “A full audience.”

But Singer has learned quickly that nothing is a given in today’s world of arts presenting and hasn’t been since she took this job three years ago.

Plan B has become the norm.

One minute in February 2020, she was in a room full of people during her final job interview for the director’s position, and three weeks later everything had changed.

Instead of simply planning, promoting and presenting a performing arts season, the new job became canceling shows, refunding tickets and figuring out how to go forward when the routines that had been established for 30 years suddenly became topsy-turvy.

From that moment on, Singer has come to expect the unexpected.

“I’m so used to change now that at this point it’s just ‘bring it’,” she said.

Though this season has been more “normal,” even Grant’s appearance has been subject to the change that Singer has come to expect.

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The singer’s original concert was planned as last September’s season-opener in Singer’s first “normal” year.

Instead, word came last July, just as Singer had begun promoting the events and selling tickets, that Grant had been seriously injured when the bicycle she was riding during an outing with a friend hit a pothole and she crashed.

“Hearing about her accident was really upsetting,” Singer said about the performer she so admired growing up. “I just wanted her to be okay.”

Grant’s tour was put on hold, and her Henderson date was moved to this Sunday.

Since then, Grant has talked openly in the national media about her accident, the challenges of suffering cognitive issues following head trauma, gratitude for bicycle helmets (she was wisely wearing one) and the joys of writing new music and getting back into the recording studio for the first time in a while.

The 62-year-old Nashville-based entertainer was a teen-ager when she started her career in contemporary Christian music with such hits as “Father’s Eyes,” “El Shaddai” and “Angels.”

In the 1980s and and 1990s she crossed over to pop music.

Over the years she has sold more than 30 million albums (including three multi-platinum, six platinum and four gold). Her chart performance has been consistent (six No. 1 hits, 10 “Top 40” pop singles, 17 “Top 10” adult contemporary tracks and multiple contemporary Christian hits).

For her efforts, Grant has won six Grammy Awards, won 26 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards and had the first Christian album to go platinum.

That album, “Heart In Motion,” produced the no. 1 pop single “Baby Baby,” and also the chart-topping hits “That’s What Love Is For,” “Every Heartbeat” and “Good For Me.”

Christmas is also a strong element of Grant’s brand. She’s recorded five Christmas albums and regularly does a seasonal tour with her husband, country singer Vince Gill.

She’s honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a star on the Music City Walk of Fame, is an honoree in the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and last year was named as a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.

She is a keynote and inspirational speaker as well as the author of several books, including a memoir, “Mosiac: Pieces of My Life So Far,” and a book based on the popular Christmas song "Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)" that she co-wrote.

Singer said Grant’s concert on Sunday night will be a mixture of her contemporary Christian classics and pop hits, plus a little of the new music Grant has been working on.

The show will be two sets with an intermission.

“This is an amazing chance to see an icon,” she said. “We’re lucky to have her here and to have gotten on her tour. I don’t want anyone to miss it.”

If you go: Amy Grant in concert

• When: Sunday, March 26, 7:30 p.m.

• Where: McCormick Hall, Preston Arts Center, Henderson Community College, 2660 S. Green St., Henderson.

• Tickets: $45, $40, www.haaa.org.

This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: Amy Grant concert scheduled for Henderson, Kentucky on March 26