A fun night to dress up in a coat and tie or cocktail dress and hear some fine live music on the McDonough Square is on tap in the next week, as Story on the Square hosts a fundraising concert to benefit a local high school orchestra.

The event is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 4, at 7 p.m. in the event space at the popular bookstore on the Square. Tickets are $50 each and include the concert, beer, wine and light food. Those items have all been donated so that 100 percent of the proceeds from ticket sales will go to the orchestra program at Eagle’s Landing High School.

Only 100 tickets are being sold, and roughly half were already gone as of Oct. 24, according to Story on the Square owner Stephanie Gordon.

The featured musical guest is the Edgewood String Quartet, which has gained quite a following in the past two years. The group formed in the fall of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and began playing “safe” events such as outdoor and masked concerts when virtually no other live music was being played anywhere.

They perform not only classical music but a variety of other genres as well, so concert goers can expect to hear covers of many of their favorite songs. The music will be at least partly what Gordon referred to as the “Bridgerton effect,” named after the popular Netflix series which is set in the early 1800s but has many scenes at balls and dances in which the string players on hand are performing modern pop hits viewers easily recognize.

Gordon said she wanted to do something for a local high school fine arts program and reached out to the district office for direction, at which time she was directed to Eagle’s Landing High. “The young orchestra director there, Joshua Hernandez, has been very helpful and is most excited about the event and what it will do for his students,” Gordon said.

“He actually graduated from ELHS and Clayton State. He just started the program there,” she said. “They don’t have a booster club and right now they have about 20 students. We are really trying to give him a boost. He could do more if he had more sheet music and instruments.”

When she first heard the ESQ in Atlanta, she was extremely impressed and knew she wanted to bring them to Henry County for an event of some type. After some brainstorming, they all agreed that this was the way to go.

“They feel very strongly about art education,” said Gordon about the quartet. “They were all pretty much told by their parents they couldn’t make a living doing this. But they are playing all kinds of events and they’ve just recorded an album. One of the messages we want to tell the attendees and the parents is that it is possible to be a working musician.”

This event is open only to attendees 21 years of age and older due to alcohol service.

“There aren’t many events like this in Henry County where people can really dress up,” said Gordon. “This won’t be stuffy. It will be fun.”

For tickets, go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sots-presents-edgewood-string-quartet-a-benefit-for-henry-county-orchestras-tickets-403198496557