RUSSELL – Opera and jazz are finding truly appreciative audiences in the heart of Kansas.

The Ad Astra Music Festival, founded by Russell-native Alex Underwood in 2014, brings professional performers to Kansas each July for multiple performances of world class music in several venues in Russell and the surrounding area.

The festival has also founded a community choir and a high school honors choir and incorporates local voices as well.

“Each year we always have new audience members,” Underwood wrote in an assessment of the increasingly popular festival. “It’s always such an incredible compliment when so many of them stick around after the concerts in complete awe of what they just heard, and especially that the experience was in ‘the middle of nowhere Kansas.’”

Grant funds helped offset the travel cost for a string quartet and to pay the Baroque specialty singers, as well as house and transport several guest artists.