This evening (10/23) at 6:00 p.m., you can tune into Uncle Billy Dunbar’s show on WorldWideBluegrass.com and hear John Abrams talk with Billy about his work as one half of The Abrams Brothers.  Along with his younger brother James, these Canadian teenagers have been performing at bluegrass shows for several years, and have two CDs as The Abrams Brothers on Mastershield Records.

They were recipients of the 2006-2007 Daniel Pearl Memorial Violin Award, awarded by Mark O’Connor on behalf of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. Pearl was a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Many readers may recall the shock and outrage that accompanied his murder, but may not have known that he was also an avid fan of bluegrass and old time music, and played the fiddle at DC-area jams when he was at home in the US.

The brothers were awarded a hand crafted violin made by noted maker Jonathan Cooper. Two young award recipients are chosen each year at the Mark O’Conner Strings Conference in California, and the recipients get the use of the violin for a year, during which they are charged to uphold the values of Daniel Pearl: excellence, peace and belief in humanity.

The Abrams Brothers toured Israel earlier this year, specifically to take the opportunity to play the Pearl violin in his homeland, and they shared the poignancy of this gesture in their account of the visit.

“This was especially meaningful, as we soon have to return the violin to allow another person to play it and take forward Daniel’s message of peace and harmony through music and the written word. This is a responsibility we have taken very seriously, so we were especially pleased to be able to travel to Israel to share the memory of Daniel and what he stood for with the festival attendees.”

To listen to the 24/7 WWB audio stream online, just visit their streaming page, and choose a connection speed and file type. Uncle Billy’s show begins at 6:00 p.m. (eastern).

This one probably should have been filed under celebrity gossip or something, but we don’t have a category for that. Anyway, according to the PR Inside website, Brad Pitt is learning to play the mandolin. And not for a role he’s playing. He’s doing it for a role Angelina Jolie is playing. She’s playing Mariane Pearl, wife of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl in a movie titled A Mighty Heart.

Brad, who is a producer on the movie, is helping her immerse herself in the role by attempting to emulate Daniel in almost every way, including learning to play the instrument he was accomplished in.

Brad - who has no acting part in the film - spends hours discussing the relationship between Daniel and Mariane with Angelina while strumming his mandolin.

The role of Daniel is actually being played by Dan Futterman, who starred in ‘Shooting Fish’ and ‘The Birdcage’. I haven’t seen or heard anything to suggest that Mr. Futterman is learning mandolin or fiddle. Speaking of which, wasn’t Daniel Pearl more of a violin/fiddle player than a mandolin player? But I guess asking Brad Pitt to learn fiddle might be a bit much, mandolin will do.