We have made a few references here on The Bluegrass Blog to the various reactions that have been generated by the “patriotic theme” of last month’s International Bluegrass Music Awards in Nashville. The IBMA Executive Committe made some changes to the content of the show a few days prior to its staging to both alleviate the possibility of offending their non-US members, and to keep the show’s presentation within the guidelines that have existed in the past.

The Board’s requests were ultimately not honored, and then-President David Crow resigned to demonstrate his acceptance of responsibility.

You can find our earlier posts if you would to review what transpired, and what has been said about it.

The IBMA Board of Directors has just issued a statement to the membership which includes their assessment of what happened, and what they mean to do to ensure that the producers of the annual Awards Show have the sort of guidelines and oversight to avoid such occurences going forward.

Speaking just now with IBMA’s Executive Director Dan Hays, he nicely summed up the Board’s position as saying that it “was ‘what do we do about the future?’ and not ‘what do we do about the past?’ ”

As such, the Board statement focuses not on placing blame, but on conciliation and a focus on those things about which everyone in IBMA agrees is important – the continuing furtherance of the music, in the US and throughout the world.

IBMA members will each receive a copy of the statement from the Board by email, and it can also be viewed online.