Bela Fleck & Mark O’Connor to play Obama Inauguration event
The gala events surrounding the inauguration of our new president are about to get underway, and I’ve just learned that banjoist Bela Fleck and fiddler/violinist Mark O’Connor will take part.
Bela and O’Connor have accepted an invitation to perform with Wynton Marsalis and The Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra in Washington D.C. on 19th January as part of the celebrations surrounding Obama’s inauguration.
The two hour concert, Let Freedom Swing! A Celebration of America, will take place at 7pm the evening of January 19, 2009, in the Eisenhower Theater of the Kennedy Center. Tickets to the event are available by invitation only, but the Kennedy Center website says the event will be televised live. I could find no information concerning broadcast stations though.
The program will be Jazz music and not bluegrass, but Fleck and O’Connor have never let genre define them.
The program will look back on the life of one of the greatest of all Americans, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and forward to a new era under a new President. An all-star cast will illustrate that American democracy and America’s music ‚Äì jazz ‚Äì share the same tenets and embody the same potential for change, hope and renewal, which Dr. King himself called America’s "triumphant music."


This Sunday, April 2, at 6pm, the Grascals will perform on the Millennium Stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. The concert is part of the center"s Country: A Celebration of America"s Music series. The series began on March 20 and runs through April 9. The series...
March 26, 2006 is the date for a very special Grand Ole Opry show at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. The show is a part of three week festival at The Kennedy Center, entitled Country: A Celebration Of America's Music, which will feature a number of concerts, workshops...
Plum TV has posted a video interview with B?©la Fleck on their Vail, CO web site. Plum is an independent media outlet with local cable stations and web sites in 8 high end US markets: Vail, Aspen, Telluride, Nantucket, the Hamptons, Martha's Vineyard, Sun Valley and Miami Beach.
They filmed the interview...
As we could have predicted, a video capture of the recent triple banjo performance on The Late Show with David Letterman has made its way to YouTube. The clip is taken from Wednesday's program (4/26) and features Steve Martin, Tony Trischka and Bela Fleck playing Martin's The Crow, one of 14 double banjo...
Thanks to Becky Taylor for passing along this heartwarming story which appears in today's issue of The Richmond Times Dispatch.
It tells of how Jim Connor, then a member of The Kingston Trio, had his custom Vega banjo stolen after a show in 1971, only to have it restored to him when a former student...
Today at noon, Bela Fleck & The Flecktones will give a live radio performance on Blue Plate Special, broadcast on WDVX 89.9 FM in Knoxville, TN. The show will also be simulcast online via a web audio stream, but is not archived so be sure to catch the show live.
Bela and the boys played last night...
Our good buddy Wichita Rutherford interviews Bela Fleck in the latest episode of his podcast 5 Minutes With Wichita. As usual, it's hilarious and worth spending 5 minutes on. I was a little worried for my friend at one point, but in the end he dodged the bullet...or arrow that is! Wichita sent along...




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[...] Fleck to Play Inauguration Event Posted on January 14, 2009 by DJB Thanks to the Bluegrass Blog for passing along the news that Mark O’Connor and Bela Fleck will be playing next Monday at [...]
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