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Back in the fall of 2007 we told you about the Appalachian Music: Roots and Influences concentration being offered at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. At the time we reported that former Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys' guitarist/lead singer, Dave Haney, was heading up the program. We also reported that he [...]
The Berklee College of Music in Boston holds intensive crash courses each summer, both for incoming or potential students to get a taste of the Berklee experience, and to allow non-matriculated students to benefit from the school's storied faculty. For several years they have held a String Fling each year for students of violin, viola [...]
Young mandolinist Joe Walsh has found himself mentioned several times of late on Bluegrass Today. We posted a report in May 2006 when Joe was still a student at the Berklee College Of Music, and performed with other Berklee bluegrassers at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. When he joined up as a member of [...]
WOSU Public Media in Columbus, OH ran a piece yesterday about the bluegrass ensemble at Denison University in Granville, OH. Andy Carlson, the chair of the music department at Denison, began the bluegrass ensemble in 2000. Carlson is a classically trained violinist who inherited a love of fiddle music from his grandfather. Carlson discusses the [...]
Last week, Brance had a wonderful story about Joel Sidney, a recent University of California at Berkeley graduate, whose honors thesis was entitled Innovation and Tradition in Bay Area Bluegrass: Historical Review and Analysis of Distinctive Regional Features. Here's another encouraging story about bluegrass on the college campus, this time at UCLA. Thomas Stanton is [...]
Here's a cool story that demonstrates a bluegrass, can-do attitude. Joel Sidney graduated yesterday from the University of California at Berkeley. Joel's story is unique though. His grade-point average was almost perfect, his degree in American Studies, the subject of his honors thesis was bluegrass music in the Bay Area, and he's done it all [...]
Our friend Dave Hollender gave us a nice report last month after Chris Thile and Punch Brothers offered a clinic at the Berklee College of Music in Boston on April 7. Dave shared some photos and a nice run down of the event. This morning (5/5), Berklee has posted a brief account of the clinic [...]
This post is a contribution from David Hollender, Professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Dave has been a member of the ensemble department for several years, and teaching upright bass. He also teaches banjo for students following the Acoustic String Principal, where banjo, mandolin, acoustic guitar or fiddle players can pursue a [...]
James Montgomery discovered bluegrass music at age 9 in his native North Carolina. He was suffering from polio and spent a lot of time listening to the radio. Now, 68 years later, and retired in Austin, TX, Montgomery recently donated $500,000 dollars to Mars Hill College in North Carolina. The school has an Appalachian Studies [...]
Students at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC have been learning a lot about bluegrass recently. In the fall of 2006 the university began offering a concentration in Appalachian Music: Roots and Influences from the College of Arts and Sciences for the Center for Appalachian Studies for those students seeking an M.A. degree in Appalachian [...]
