IBMA World of Bluegrass Fan Fest September 24-30, 2012

IBMA's WORLD of BLUEGRASS to include star-studded FAN FEST headlined by Del McCoury Band; Will The Circle Be Unbroken 40th anniversary celebration;sessions with Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush & Rodney Dillard ...and much, much MORE!

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Though it’s still in the works, the 2012 WORLD of BLUEGRASS in Nashville, September 24-30, 2012, already includes an enticing itinerary of unforgettable bluegrass events: a star-studded Fan Fest featuring more than 60 acts, headlined by The Del McCoury Band; intriguing panel discussions and presentations in the week-long business conference; and a very special 40th anniversary celebration of Will The Circle Be Unbroken, a landmark recording that helped put bluegrass music on the international map.

Produced by the International Bluegrass Music Association, World of Bluegrass is a cornerstone event that draws casual fans, working musicians, and industry tradespeople for a week that includes something for everybody in the bluegrass community: a business conference, trade show, panel discussions, tributes, masters’ workshops, a fiddle contest, a golf outing, an awards show, a festival, and jamming all week long.

Some of bluegrass music’s superstars will appear in the tribute sessions, panel discussions, and educational seminars being planned for the
WOB business conference. Highlights include…
§ On Monday, Sep. 24 at 1:30 p.m., the conference kicks off with a keynote speech by Missy Raines and Chris Jones.

§ The week continues with a session on Creative Music Arrangement featuring Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Bill Evans, and moderator Harry Stinson.

§ Claire Lynch, Buddy Greene, Ricky Skaggs, and Chris Jones will participate in The Doc Watson Hour, remembering the late guitar innovator with some of his own music.

§ An intriguing session called Pioneers & Explorers will feature musicians Pete Wernick, Tim Stafford, and Sierra Hull as they embark on a musical adventure that compares and contrasts traditional and progressive bluegrass styles.

§ “Doug's Tune”: Remembering Doug Dillard will include memories and stories from Kathy Chiavola, John McEuen, and Rodney Dillard.


On Wednesday, September 26, from 1:30-3:30 p.m., IBMA’s World of Bluegrass business conference will include a celebration, discussion and Q&A session dedicated to Will The Circle Be Unbroken. Released in 1972, this landmark recording brought Mother Maybelle Carter, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Merle Travis, Vassar Clements, Bashful Brother Oswald Kirby, Norman Blake, Jimmy Martin, Roy Acuff, and others into a studio with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, a popular country-folk-rock group, to record a triple album that made music history. The recording was an irresistible bridge to bluegrass and traditional country music for rock audiences. Hosted by John McEuen of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the celebration will also feature remarkable, rarely-seen photographs of the recording sessions, most shot by producer William McEuen.

World of Bluegrass ends each year on a high note with Fan Fest, a huge three-day indoor bluegrass concert at the Nashville Convention Center from Friday, Sep. 28 - Sunday, Sep. 30. More than 60 acts, all donating their performances, will appear at the event. This year’s lineup, still in progress, already includes…

The Del McCoury Band
Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
The Steep Canyon Rangers
The Grascals
Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out
Jesse McReynolds & Virginia Boys Reunion
Balsam Range
Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice
Claire Lynch Band
Blue Highway
Lonesome River Band
The SteelDrivers
The Nashville Bluegrass Band
Dale Ann Bradley
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper
The Skip Cherryholmes Quintet
Marty Raybon
The Sleepy Man Banjo Boys
Jim Lauderdale
Josh Williams Band
Sierra Hull & Hwy 111
Newfound Road
​Charlie Sizemore Band
Della Mae
The Bankester Family
The Roys
Volume Five
…and more to be announced!


Fan Fest sponsors include Martin Guitars, GHS Strings, VisitRaleigh.com, BlueHighways TV, SESAC, and WAMU’s Bluegrass Country.

For more information on World of Bluegrass, including tickets to the International Bluegrass Music Awards, visit www.ibma.org, join IBMA’s Facebook group, or call 615-256-3222 (888-GET-IBMA). Tickets are on sale now at the website and at the phone number listed above.

# # #

Contacts:
Judy McDonough, JEMMedia:
(615) 243-5994, mcdonoughmedia1@yahoo.com,

Caroline Wright, IBMA
(615) 256-3222, caroline@ibma.org



Judy McDonough
615-243-5994
Twitter: @jemmcd
mcdonoughmedia1@yahoo.com

Sam Bush to Host 22nd International Bluegrass Music Awards

Nashville, Tenn.….Award-winning artist, band leader, songwriter and mandolin monster Sam Bush will host the 22nd annual International Bluegrass Music Awards on Thursday, September 29, at 7:30 p.m. at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium.

“It is my pleasure to return as the host for the 2011 IBMA Awards,” Bush says. “As a bluegrass fan and fellow Kentuckian, it’s especially important to me in the 100th year anniversary of Bill Monroe’s birth. I look forward to spending the evening with the nominees and the winners, as this is their special night.”

Grammy Award winning multi-instrumentalist Sam Bush doesn’t seem old enough to be a musical legend. He’s not…but he is. Alternately known as the “King of Telluride” and the “Father of Newgrass,” Bush has been honored with numerous awards from IBMA and the Americana Music Association. It’s especially fitting that Bush, one of bluegrass music’s premier mandolin players, will host the IBMA Awards the year of the Bill Monroe Centennial. Bill Monroe, known as the Father of Bluegrass Music, would have turned 100 on September 13, 2011. The realm of his influence is vast and his accomplishments are many, but like Sam Bush three decades later, one thing Monroe did was ride the small, uniquely shaped, eight-stringed mandolin like a rocket into a new realm of musical expression the world had never heard before.

Recognitions like the Lifetime Achievement Award from the AMA for Bush in 2009 have been “overwhelming and humbling,” he says, but honors are not what drive him. “I didn’t get into music to win awards,” he says. “I’m just now starting to get somewhere. I love to play and the older I get the more I love it. And I love new things.”

Among those new things are the growing group of mandolin players that identify Bush as their musical role model in much the same way he idolized Bill Monroe and Jethro Burns. “If I’ve been cited as an influence, then I’m really flattered because I still have my influences that I look up to,” Bush says. “I’m glad that I’m in there somewhere.”

He’s being humble, of course. Bush has helped to expand the horizons of bluegrass music, fusing it with jazz, rock, blues, funk, reggae and other styles. He’s the co-founder of the genre-bending New Grass Revival and an in-demand musician who has played with everyone from Emmylou Harris and Bela Fleck to Charlie Haden, Lyle Lovett and Garth Brooks. And though Bush is best known for his jaw-dropping skills on the mandolin, he is also a three-time National Junior Fiddle Champion and Grammy Award-winning vocalist. Last year a song he co-wrote, “The Ballad of Stringbean and Estelle,” was one of the five nominees for IBMA Song of the Year.

“In the acoustic world I’ve been pretty lucky to play with almost every one of my heroes. I’ve gotten to play with Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs…. I’ve been to the mountain,” Bush says, smiling. But his greatest contribution may be his impact on the future. “I’m secure with what I can do and I know what I can’t do,” he says. “You just have to stand there and applaud the great young talent. Chris Thile, Wayne Benson, Shawn Lane, Matt Flinner, Ronnie McCoury, Mike Marshall—they play in ways that I can’t play,” he says of the current field of mandolin players. “I’m hoping to be around for the next generation that comes along after that group. That’s going to be something. The music keeps evolving.”

“It’s crazy to think about,” Bush says of his influence. “I’m proud to be part of a natural progression in music. And I hope to still be playing 30 years from now.”

That said, it’s not surprising that Bush still has goals. “I want to grow as a songwriter, as a song collaborator,” he says. “There are still a lot of things I haven’t discovered about playing mandolin. I want to be able to be secure in the styles that I know how to play well, but I also want to explore other styles that I haven’t learned yet. I want to improve as a singer,” he adds. “I have to work harder on singing than I do on playing.”

“As long as I’m alive I hope I have the ability to play,” says Bush, a two-time cancer survivor. When the ability to play is taken away, it’s humbling. It teaches you a lesson: don’t take it for granted.”

Circles Around Me, Bush’s current album on the Sugar Hill label, is an aurally inspiring mix of bluegrass favorites and complementary new songs. “It felt right at this moment in my life to go back and re-visit some things that I’ve loved all my life, which is bluegrass and, unapologetically, newgrass,” says Bush. “After all these years of experimenting —and there’s experimentation on this record too —I’ve come full circle.” Produced by Bush, the 14-song set includes appearances by Del McCoury, Edgar Meyer, Jerry Douglas and New Grass Revival co-founder Courtney Johnson (posthumously). The album also features the phenomenal talent of Bush’s band: Scott Vestal, Stephen Mougin, Byron House and Chris Brown.

Nominations for the International Bluegrass Music Awards will be announced at a special press conference scheduled for Wednesday, August 17, 5-6 p.m. Central at The Loveless Barn in Nashville—so mark your calendars now!

For more information on World of Bluegrass, including tickets to the International Bluegrass Music Awards, go to www.ibma.org, join us on Facebook, or call 615-256-3222 (888-GET-IBMA). Tickets are on sale now at the website.

The IBMA Awards will be broadcast live on Sirius XM Satellite Radio (Bluegrass Junction, Channel 14) and will be syndicated to more than 300 U.S. markets and 14 foreign networks thanks to the sponsorship of Martha White, Sugar Hill Records, Deering Banjos, Compass Records and the International Bluegrass Music Museum. Program directors and station managers may sign up to be affiliates online at www.ibma.org.

The International Bluegrass Music Awards are voted on by the professional membership of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), which serves as the trade association for the bluegrass music industry. The IBMA Awards Show is the centerpiece of the World of Bluegrass week, including the industry’s Business Conference and Bluegrass Fan Fest, which takes place September 26 – October 2 in Nashville.