This weekend’s season-opening edition of A Prairie Home Companion will feature performances by a pair of mandolinists who smartly bookend the modern history of the instrument in bluegrass and Americana music. Sam Bush, the wizened veteran, recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association, while fresh-faced newcomer Sarah Jarosz is celebrating her debut CD, Song Up In Her Head, as she begins college in Boston.

But neither Bush nor Jarosz can be described simply – or even  primarily – as a mandolinist. Both are distinctive vocalists and multi-instrumentalists as well, and Bush’s place as a seminal figure in the development of newgrass is uncontested. Where a young artist like Jarosz will take the music will be an interesting story to watch this next however many years.

All that aside, Saturday’s program will allow both to showcase music from their new releases with listeners invited to draw, or ignore any comparisons they wish. Sam will have his mighty band in tow, and Sarah will do a couple with the PHC house band (plus Byron House on bass), and one on her own.

The broadcast from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, MN goes out live September 26 at 6:00 p.m. (EDT) over hundreds of public radio affiliates across the US. It will also be simulcast live online and on Sirius-XM.

Many radio affiliates delay the broadcast until later in the evening, or Sunday morning, so check your local station for air times.

We are hoping to get a behind-the-scenes report from Sarah later this weekend. Should be a whale of a show.

Sarah Jarosz will be among the thousands of college freshmen descending onto the city of Boston next month. Long regarded as one of the biggest college towns in the US, Boston is the home of The New England Conservatory, where Sarah will begin her studies in September. She will join a first year class filled to the brim with talented young musicians, but she may be among the few who had a critically-acclaimed recording released while she was still in high school.

Sarah will surely be among the very few with a folk and bluegrass background in this prestigious conservatory of classical music. Her debut CD, Song Up In Her Head, was released earlier this year on Sugar Hill, showcasing her skills as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist (mandolin, banjo, guitar, mandocello).

Hailing from Texas, Sarah has been a recognized prodigy in the bluegrass/old time/Americana music world for several years. By the time she was 13, Sarah was appearing at festivals and catching the eye of professional entertainers like Tim O’Brien and Sugar Hill signed her before her senior year of high school. At 18 years old, she is already an experienced stage performer and had award-winning producer Gary Paczosa (Alison Krauss, Nickel Creek) with her in the studio.

We spoke with Sarah about making the move from Texas to Massachusetts, and how she came to chose NEC from among the other schools she considered.

“I did visit several other schools in the fall of my senior year of high school – The Juilliard School and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, and Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory in Boston. I applied to, and auditioned for Berklee and New England Conservatory.

The atmosphere at New England Conservatory and Berklee are incredibly positive, and everyone I met seemed so excited and serious about learning as much as possible about music. One of the most appealing aspects to me about NEC, however, is their program called Contemporary Improvisation which really lets each student create their own personal style through the study of world music and ear training.The size of the school is also very appealing.There are about 750 students in the entire school. NEC also has a great liberal arts department which was an important factor to me in deciding on a school.” (more…)

With August 1 on the horizon, the airwaves are once again inundated with back to school advertisements. For recently-graduated high schoolers, plans for college are well underway, fraught with that bittersweet mix of anticipation and uncertainty.

Next week we’ll have stories about two prominent young grassers who are making that transition.

Sierra Hull and Sarah Jarosz, string prodigies both of them, are headed to school in Boston this fall. They each had a major independent label debut while still in high school, and both have a bright future in bluegrass/acoustic music. We’ll have interviews with both of these talented young ladies, where they explain why they chose to attend college, and how they settled on the schools they picked.

Here’s a clip of Sarah and Sierra from Grey Fox earlier this summer, laying down a solid version of Bill Monroe’s Old Dangerfield.

Yep… the future of our music is in good hands.

Here’s a nice look at Sarah Jarosz and a few of the songs from her debut CD, Song Up In Her Head.

It was shot last month during her Texas CD release party at Blue Rock Studios on June 11. Alex Hargreaves is on fiddle and Sam Grisman on bass. Sarah shares a bit about the project, and performs a few songs.