With a voice as potent as the hot summer sun, Neko Case will help celebrate the season and raise a little money for the 2012 Utah Arts Festival.---

The 2012 Summer Solstice Show will be held Saturday, June 16, at 7:30 p.m. on Library Square in downtown Salt Lake City. It is a fundraiser for the 2012 Utah Arts Festival, which runs June 21–24.

So far in 2012, the 41-year-old singer-songwriter added some alt-rock flourishes to The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 And Beyond with “Nothing to Remember.” She also showed off her 1787 Vermont farmhouse in Country Living, which is where she composes much of her material in her kitchen on an upright piano she salvaged from a nearby frat house, oddly enough.

But like many holidays, Case will be away from her abode on the summer solstice. Thankfully for Utah, she’ll help celebrate the longest day of the year here. It’s a bit odd, though, considering she’s an artist who’s summertime lyrics general dwell on the ending of this fertile season: “Andy, the summer's over/I never noticed/Did you really think you'd leave so fast?” (“Andy”) or “Magpie comes a calling/ Drops a marble from the sky/ Tin roof sounds alarm/ And wake up, child/ Let this be a warning, says the magpie to the morning/ Don't let this fading summer pass you by” (“Magpie in the Morning”). But her signature voice -- rough, strong, versatile -- might just be the perfect sound to accompany a desert-city summer.

Neko Case’s “Magpie in the Morning”

Many will recognize Case for her work as a member of Canadian indie group The New Pornographers, as well as with Neko Case and Her Boyfriends, The Corn Sisters and The Sadies. But her unorthodox songwriting and steel-piped voice have propelled her solo career up the Americana ladder. Don’t miss this show.

Neko Case's "This Tornado Loves You" from Letterman

Tickets for the 2012 Summer Solstice Show go on sale to the public Friday, April 20, 10 a.m. online at SummerSolsticeShow.com, and in person at all Graywhale locations.