There is an interesting interview with Punch Brothers on the Paste Magazine web site. It features the guys sitting down with Paste’s College Music Journal correspondent to talk about the instruments they use.

If you are interested in old instruments and the stories behind them, you’ll want to give this a look.

End-of-the-year tours offer unique opportunities to see familiar faces in new and interesting settings. Sometimes, it will be artists with special music, like Jerry Douglas and John Cowan, who each are touring in support of new Christmas albums.

Or you may find sidemen touring together while their primary musical employers are taking some time off for the holidays. There are two such mini-tours for the end of 2009 that should be of interest to bluegrass and acoustic music fans.

First up, The Nedski-Mojo Show, which began this past weekend, and continues through next week. It features banjo picker Ned Luberecki, who performs with both Chris Jones and Larry Cordle, and guitarist Stephen Mougin, who works with Sam Bush. Both are superb musicians and singers, and Ned could easily hold forth for half the show as a stand up comedian.

They have a string of concerts and workshops along the east coast leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday and you can be sure to catch a highly entertaining and musically challenging program if they stop near you. A full list of dates can be found on Facebook.

Then in December, mandolinists Adam Steffey and Kym Warner will tour together briefly in Virginia and Maryland, billed as Mandolin Sessions.

Steffey may be the most prominent bluegrass mando man in the biz these days. He has been named Mandolin Player of the Year six times by the IBMA, and his current CD and DVD releases are hits with the public. Most folks first came to know his music when he was a member of Alison Krauss & Union Station, and he has toured since with Mountain Heart and now, Dan Tyminski.

Warner is a founding member of The Greencards, a fascinating, genre-bending outfit of acoustic musicians who formed in the US, though none were native born. Kym hails from Australia, but lives now in Nashville.

You can find information about the Mandolin Sessions dates at Mandolin Cafe.

What happens when a bluegrass banjo player makes a documentary film about a legendary 18th century composer?

The result with Michael Lawrence is Bach and Friends, due for DVD release early in 2010. The film looks at the timeless music of Johann Sebastian Bach through the eyes of 21st century musicians in a variety of genres. Lawrence has made a dozen or more documentaries, many focused on musical topics and personalities.

Mike told us that this Bach film began as a small project, but starting with his connections in the bluegrass world, has grown to include interviews and performances from some of the biggest names in contemporary music. Bach and Friends features several names familiar to bluegrass fans (Chris Thile, Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer), along with jazz singer Bobby McFerrin and classical notables Joshua Bell, Sharon Isbin, Glenn Gould and The Emerson String Quartet.

“The whole idea of the movie is to bring young people – and people who aren’t familiar with Bach – to learn more about him. The project started with just an idea and my savings, and I had no idea there would be so many luminaries in the movie.

I spent about a year producing from the second floor of my house, and I just started contacting people, and they said yes.”

Lawrence runs a one-man operation (Michael Lawrence Films) and came to classical music from a bluegrass background. He played banjo as a young man, and with no options to study banjo in college such as there are today, he gravitated to guitar. He was a member of the very first graduating class at The Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Aaron Shearer, and performed as a classical guitarist.

Film scoring and original music for films was Michael’s introduction to the world of the cinema. He provided music for more than a dozen projects, most notably The Other Americans, which won numerous Emmy Awards in 1969. Lawrence soon found his place behind the camera, and as writer, producer or director, has more than 20 films to his credit, aired on PBS, HBO and CNN.

After a career close to classical music, it was his bluegrass roots that got the Bach Project off the ground.

“Béla was the first big name person who came aboard, which led to Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile. I knew of Chris from Nickel Creek, but had no idea he played Bach.”

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We had a bunch of photos up last week from Sam Bush’s CD release party for Circles Around Me, which also served as a 25th Wedding Anniversary party for he and Lynn. Now, Sugar Hill has released a second Sam Bush TV clip, with scenes and brief interviews from the party.

Click on the Episode #2 link in the player.