The voice of Claire Lynch is incredibly soothing — in conversation and in front of a microphone.

With a songbird tone and cadence, the singer is like a free-flowing breeze, something that swirls around you and picks you up, as if you’re a fallen leaf at the peak of beauty, eager to once again sit high in the sky.

Way out in Graham County, high up in the rugged wilderness of the Nantahala National Forest, is a lonely stretch of N.C. 28.

To the north lies Robbinsville, to the south the Swain County line. But, where you’re standing, seemingly in the middle-of-nowhere, is actually the hottest ticket in Western North Carolina — the “An Appalachian Evening” series at the Stecoah Valley Center.

Following a second “Entertainer of the Year” award from the International Bluegrass Music Association this past September in Raleigh, the members of Balsam Range went immediately back into the recording booth. 

Hunkered down in the Crossroads Studios in Arden, the quintet burned the midnight oil far into the foliage season, which has resulted in the band’s eighth album, “Aeonic” (out Jan. 4 on Mountain Home Music Company). The record is a testament to the hard work and determination Balsam Range not only possesses, but radiates to inspire those around them, onstage or off. 

Though part of the scene most of her life, singer/mandolinist Sierra Hull has been making some big waves in the world of bluegrass in recent years. 

In 12 years together, Haywood County-based Balsam Range have played some of the biggest stages in the music industry, and have also taken home some of the highest awards in the bluegrass world. 

Sitting on a bench in the lobby of the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium last Thursday evening, Marc Pruett waits quietly for the rest of his band, Balsam Range, to arrive for the International Bluegrass Music Association award show. 

In the digital age that is the 21st century, and in many aspects of this modern era, the culture and history of Western North Carolina and greater Southern Appalachia is disappearing. 

Whether it be an old-timer passing down their wisdom or listening to a well-aged recording of someone long gone from this earth, or vast shelves of often forgotten books gathering dust at your local library or historical society, how one tracks down the essence of who came before us, and who will surely come after, resides in the annals of storytelling. 

At 63, Ricky Skaggs has spent just about 58 of those years completely enamored and immersed in that singular “high, lonesome sound” at the heart of bluegrass music. 

Given a mandolin at the age of 5, a year later he was onstage playing alongside Bill Monroe, the “Father of Bluegrass,” only to find himself at age 7 on a nationally televised variety show plucking with the likes of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. As a teenager, he opened for, and eventually was invited to join Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, following that up a few years later with stints in The Country Gentlemen and J.D. Crowe’s The New South. 

Over the last few years, guitarist Trey Hensley and dobroist Rob Ickes have crisscrossed the country with their unique brand of bluegrass, where the lines tend to blur slightly into the realms of Americana and classic country music. 

Fifteen-time “Dobro Player of the Year” by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), Ickes was a founding member of Blue Highway, a pillar of the the genre over the last quarter-century. And with Hensley, you have someone who performed on the Grand Ole Opry alongside Marty Stuart and Earl Scruggs at the age of 11, only to release his debut album and also find himself pickin’-n-grinnin’ with the late Johnny & June Carter Cash just a year later. 

Hot off the heels of winning the Grammy for “Best Bluegrass Album” this past winter, Rhonda Vincent & The Rage stand atop the genre as a marquee act, one whose determination is deeply rooted in keeping the traditions of the “high, lonesome sound” alive and flourishing. 

At the center of this whirlwind of string instruments is Vincent, an eight-time International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) “Female Vocalist of the Year.” The singer/mandolinist remains a vital, vibrant bridge between the originators and pioneers of the music created by Bill Monroe and where we stand today in the modern era — a crossroads of the neo-traditional and progressive bluegrass camps, come hell or high water.