Since 1995, St. Clair Productions’ folk and ethnic concert series has brought to the Rogue Valley community a musical experience as diverse in styles as artists.

Now, Ariella St. Clair of Ashland is planning her first Keep the Music Coming concert, silent auction and dessert fund-raiser. Performing in support of St. Clair Productions will be bluesman Michael "Hawkeye" Herman, Montana Soul and Back Porch Swing Jazz.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for dessert and silent auction, and the music starts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Unitarian Center, Fourth and C streets, Ashland. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door and $6 for kids 5-17 and SOU students. They’re available at the Music Coop in the A Street Market Place in Ashland. For more information, call 535-3562 or visit www.stclairevents.com.

"If the community doesn’t support this, there’s a chance it won’t be able to go on," says St. Clair, who operates the non-profit Oregon corporation on a shoestring in her spare time.

She’s netted about $3,600 on 10 shows and a festival this year. Her shortfall is only about $600, but she has concerts coming up, and up-front money to pay artists. She’s seeking grants. She still runs a cleaning service.

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"I’ve always done it this way," she says. "It’s always been in the black, but on the edge."

St. Clair began presenting folk shows when she moved to Ashland from California in 1995. At first, shows were presented in conjunction with the Ashland Folk Music Club, but when the club changed its focus to contra dances, St. Clair took over the series, forming a nonprofit in 2001. Unlike Britt or other big guys in the scene, St. Clair essentially depends on shows to pay their way.

St. Clair expanded the singer/songwriter series to include ethnic music from around the world. Over the years she has presented more than 200 shows in the Rogue Valley, including Greg Brown, Odetta, Kitka, Feron, Cris Williamson, Holly Near and Tret Fure, Magical Strings, the Battlefield Band, Robin and Linda Williams, Jai Uttal, and Huun Huur Tu, the Throatsingers of Tuva.

The Rogue Valley Blues Festival is also a St. Clair event. Featured have been: "Hawkeye" Herman, Guy Davis, Linda Hornbuckle, Curtis Salgado, Lester Chambers and KK Martin, the Holmes Brothers, Otis Taylor, Geoff Muldaur, and David Jacobs-Strain.

St. Clair says she has leftover bills from this year’s festival.

The auction features items from local crafters, restaurants, theaters, healers and shops.

Herman, a blues scholar as well as a musician, has been performing the blues at festivals, clubs and schools around the United States for more than 35 years. His shows include many forms of acoustic blues plus stories on the music’s history.

Drawing from American folk and blues, to heartland country, chants and originals, Montana Soul is a musical meeting of Anna Christensen and Tom Klinefelter. Christensen, formally trained in the operatic styles, has been singing most of her life. Klinefelter has been performing since the ’60s.

Back Porch Swing Jazz is an Ashland group specializing in the music of Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grappelli and other jazz. The group is Linda Powers on violin, George Rubaloff on guitar, Tim Church on lead guitar, Sam Cuenca on bass and Lance Hilt on his "Pur-cussion" kit drum set.

Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail bvarble@mailtribune.com