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Thursday, February 7, 2019 7:30 PM // Hill Auditorium

Echo in the Valley
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn

Performance
Photo credit: jim mcguire
 

Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn met at a square dance and began playing music together over a decade ago, marrying shortly thereafter.

Fleck had long been interested in the banjo, but Washburn’s path to a music career was more roundabout: a proffered record deal in the halls of a bluegrass convention in Kentucky changed her trajectory from becoming a lawyer in China to a traveling folk musician.

Echo in the Valley is the follow-up to acclaimed, self-titled debut that earned the duo a 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album. This time around, their mission was to take their double-banjo combination of three-finger and clawhammer styles to the next level. Their rules for the recording: all sounds must be created by the two of them, the only instruments used were banjos (they have seven between them, ranging from a ukulele to an upright bass banjo), and they had to be able to perform every recorded song live. Echo in the Valley connects us to our past through wild re-imaginings of traditional Appalachian tunes, with original songs inspired by a man who ferried Syrian refugees to safety and by Native American voices lamenting a distancing from nature.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

Thursday, February 7, 2019 7:30 PM
Hill Auditorium

Echo in the Valley
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn

Performance

Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn met at a square dance and began playing music together over a decade ago, marrying shortly thereafter.

Fleck had long been interested in the banjo, but Washburn’s path to a music career was more roundabout: a proffered record deal in the halls of a bluegrass convention in Kentucky changed her trajectory from becoming a lawyer in China to a traveling folk musician.

Echo in the Valley is the follow-up to acclaimed, self-titled debut that earned the duo a 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album. This time around, their mission was to take their double-banjo combination of three-finger and clawhammer styles to the next level. Their rules for the recording: all sounds must be created by the two of them, the only instruments used were banjos (they have seven between them, ranging from a ukulele to an upright bass banjo), and they had to be able to perform every recorded song live. Echo in the Valley connects us to our past through wild re-imaginings of traditional Appalachian tunes, with original songs inspired by a man who ferried Syrian refugees to safety and by Native American voices lamenting a distancing from nature.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

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  • Michael and Leslee Perlstein

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