PALESTINE — The sounds of Christmas music on the mountain dulcimer and related instruments will fill the auditorium of the Museum for East Texas Culture beginning at 7 p.m. Friday during a special Christmas concert fund-raiser.

The show will be led by the Jerry and Margaret Wright family of Kennard, who founded and produce the three-day Palestine Old Time Music and Dulcimer Festival held every March at the museum.

“We just do this for our enjoyment — the museum will make 100 percent of the profit,” Jerry Wright said during a phone interview Wednesday. “We have a good relationship with the museum from doing the dulcimer festival each year and we want to do our part to help.”

The Wrights first visited the museum about 13 years ago, taking a tour through the historic building with family and friends.

“My oldest son Hollis said this was the perfect place to play music — he was standing in the auditorium,” Wright recalled.

When a museum employee asked if they wanted to hold a dulcimer concert there in the future, it got the wheels turning.

The family started by doing a concert fund-raiser for the museum in March years ago, which eventually turned into the annual three-day Palestine Old Time Music and Dulcimer Festival in March.

“We made mention that we would still like to do something to help the museum, and they asked us to do a Christmas concert,” Wright said, noting the Christmas fund-raiser has been held for the past five or so years.

The Wright family got its start playing dulcimers in 1994 during a vacation trip. Margaret Wright already had a background in music. She received a degree in voice from a South Carolina college and enjoyed playing the piano, singing solo and in the choir.

Jerry and Margaret Wright took the family trip with their two sons, Hollis and Lloyd, who at the time were 15 and 12, respectively.

While traveling through Missouri, Wright said it was like they were visited by angels.

“We stopped at three different places and three different people asked us randomly if we liked caves,” Wright said, suggesting the family visit Mountain View, Ark. on their way home.

When they drove through Mountain View, Ark., it wasn’t the caves that took their interest.

“We found music there we dearly loved,” Wright said, referring to their first experience hearing dulcimer music.

The Wrights bought their first mountain dulcimer — fighting over who got to play it. Eventually they each got their own.

“We got involved in a dulcimer club and by December we were playing in public,” Wright said.

By the year 2000, Lloyd was named a national champion on the mountain dulcimer.

Now their sons are 30 and 27, respectively, and still perform at dulcimer events with their parents.

Lloyd plays the mountain dulcimer, banjo, guitar and mandolin. Hollis plays bass, mountain dulcimer, Autoharp and the mandolin. Margaret plays bass, keyboard and mountain dulcimer. Wright plays a three-string instrument related to the dulcimer called a pickin’ stick.

The Wright family will be joined Friday by other family and friends who enjoy playing dulcimers.

“We will have at least 15 of us on stage performing Friday night,” Wright said. “Many of them are coming from around 100 miles to do the concert.”

The concert will feature Christmas classics everyone will recognize.

“Christmas music sounds really good on the dulcimer,” Wright said. “For the price of the ticket, you will get to hear a couple of hours of very nice music. Some of us will do specials where one or two of us will perform too.”

The Wrights also will perform one selection of the lost art of sacred harp singing.

“My wife and I will do the sacred harp singing with Lloyd and his wife April,” Wright said. “People by the hundreds used to sing this stuff in the late 1800s and early 1900s in a church in Houston County. That’s how fast things can disappear on you. That’s another reason why we think it’s important to keep the museum alive — to keep history alive.”

Tickets for the Christmas dulcimer concert are $10 and can be purchased at the museum office, 400 Micheaux Ave. For information, call the museum at 903-723-1914.

For those who want to learn to play the dulcimer, Margaret Wright will be offering classes starting in late January at the museum.

“She will offer evening classes on Thursdays on Jan. 28, Feb. 4, Feb. 11, Feb. 18, Feb. 25 and March 4,” Wright said. “It’s a good introduction to the dulcimer.”

For more information, visit www.jerrywrightfamily.com