If you’re as sick of political campaigns and candidates as I am right now, you’ll take as very welcome news the announcement that it’s time to start voting in our 2008 Best of Savannah contest.

This is an election that’s fun to take part in, one that’s totally local, and has the added bonus that you won’t get blown up, experience an economic depression, or have your taxes raised if you choose wrong.

You’ll find our print ballot on page 18 of this week’s issue, and we’ll continue to run that ballot in the next several issues. However, for your convenience as well as ours we are strongly encouraging you to vote online at connectsavannah.com. In any case, make sure you’ve voted online or had your ballots postmarked by midnight May 2. We’ll publish the results in the issue hitting stands May 21.

We’ve tweaked the categories a little bit, and added a few new ones. Due to last year’s mutiny in the local blogosphere, when yours truly won “Best Local Blogger” to much recrimination and gnashing of virtual teeth, I have disqualified myself from that category and all others. So no excuses this time, nimrods!

It’s a cliche to say that someone saved the best for last, but in the case of this year’s Savannah Music Festival, it’s true. Saturday night’s festival finale of the Sparrow Quartet at the Trustees Theater was not only perhaps the best single performance of the nearly three-week event, it made history as well: The band’s erstwhile leader and lead vocalist Abigail Washburn said the Savannah concert was the largest audience the eclectic combo has performed for in their short but electrifying career.

Usually a “supergroup” such as the Sparrow Quartet — which also includes the great Bela Fleck on banjo, the aggressive yet tasteful Casey Driessen on fiddle, and the amazingly inventive Ben Sollee on cello — is less than the sum of its parts because it lacks chemistry. But in this case, the collaboration led to something quite transcendental.

My ten-year-old daughter and I happened to sit across the aisle from Hart and Dee Williford, who helped sponsor the concert. I hope they noticed how much she enjoyed it, and I thank them for their continued support of the Savannah Music Festival, which is indeed exposing a whole new generation of local musicians to quality performances.