The Special Consensus 

2018 GRAMMY NOMINEE
2023 IBMA MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR
2023 IBMA RECORDED EVENT OF THE YEAR

The Special Consensus is a bluegrass band that has achieved a contemporary sound in over four decades of performing. Band leader and founder Greg Cahill is a recipient of the prestigious Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) and was inducted into the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA) Hall of Greats. Special Consensus has received seven awards from IBMA and two Grammy nominations.

These musicians - Greg Cahill (banjo), Greg Blake (guitar and 2023 IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year), Dan Eubanks (bass) and Michael Prewitt (mandolin) maintain their bluegrass center.

Rivers and Roads was nominated for a 2018 Grammy and was awarded 2018 IBMA Album of the Year. “Squirrel Hunters” from that recording received the Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year award.

The band records for Compass Records and proudly celebrated its 45th anniversary in 2020 with the release of Chicago Barn Dance. The title song “Chicago Barn Dance” received the 2020 IBMA Song of the Year Award.

Great Blue North, the 21st Special C recording, was released in May of 2023. The Gordon Lightfoot song “Alberta Bound” received the 2023 IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year award.

www.specialc.com
www.facebook.com/special.consensus
On Instagram @specialconsensus

Red Wine

2023 IBMA DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENT

Red Wine is one of the most important European bluegrass bands,  active since 1978, with a style that encompasses  traditional and contemporary bluegrass, country, gospel, and swing.

Starting 1984 Red Wine has played all over Europe, performing at major international festivals and playing concerts in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Wales, Holland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, and Austria, sharing the stage with the most important bands and acts from the USA and Europe, and gaining a strong following everywhere.

Following the huge success of the 30th anniversary celebration concert in Genova, in 2008, Red Wine started a new yearly adventure in 2009, the Red Wine Bluegrass Party, with international guests like Tim O’Brien, Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Peter Rowan, and The Kruger Brothers. In the past few years the Party has featured a refreshing opening towards other musical genres (Celtic, Dixieland, rock, old-time music), with the valuable help of incredible musicians from Italy and Europe.

http://www.redwinemusic.net/band/?lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/RedWineMusic

Sideline Bluegrass

THUNDER DAN WINS IBMA SONG OF THE YEAR! Sideline was the recipient of the 2019 Song of the Year Award at the 30th Annual International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards. The IBMA Awards Ceremony was held in Raleigh, North Carolina at the Duke Energy Performing Arts Center. Awards were voted on by the professional members of the IBMA.

Sideline is a pedigreed six-piece powerhouse whose style has set the pace in Bluegrass for over two decades. Founders Steve Dilling, Skip Cherryholmes and Jason Moore can all claim their own historical significance to the genre as members of highly awarded groups, multiple Grand Ole Opry appearances and years of national and international touring.

What started as a side project for the seasoned players soon moved to the front and center as the three were joined by talents of Jacob Greer, guitar; Zack Arnold, mandolin; and Jamie Harper, fiddle and began to record and release albums in earnest.

To listen to Sideline reminds the fan of why so many people fall in love with Bluegrass; pulse-pounding drive, songs sung from the heart, perfected timing and dynamics as well as a visceral emotion in the rendering. A band that was started as an off-season fun experiment has become a full-time dream team of players and singers.

The band, recorded or live, moves dynamically from well chosen, hard-hitting neo- traditional covers of classic songs to new material curated by a band with a perfect sense of who they are and what they have to say. Combine all this with their on- stage energy and finesse as well as their powerful and affecting harmonies, and you have the embodiment of the North Carolina Bluegrass sound. Sideline has released three national projects and currently records for the highly awarded Mountain Home Music Company based near Asheville, NC.

https://www.facebook.com/sidelinebluegrass
On Instagram @sidelinebluegrass

The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project

The musical legacy of John Hartford returns with The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project: The Tour, a show consisting of the previously unheard compositions he left behind, performed by musicians from the Grammy-nominated album, The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project Vol. 1.

Megan Lynch Chowning is a seven-time national fiddle champion and respected Nashville musician and educator. She spent four years touring with legendary country music artists Pam Tillis and Lorrie Morgan, judged the National Fiddle Championships three times, and is the co-director of the IBMA-award-winning Nashville Acoustic Camps. IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year nominee Tristan Scroggins joined Megan to record “John Rice,” “Just Enough Room to Turn Around,” and “Running Board Waltz” for the Fiddle Tune Project. Scroggins is well-known for his work with his father, Jeff Scroggins, and since moving to Nashville has played at many top venues including the Ryman Auditorium with acts such as Molly Tuttle, Missy Raines, and Dailey & Vincent. 

Joining them onstage is the legendary Adam Hurt. Deemed a "banjo virtuoso" by the Washington Post, Adam Hurt has fused several traditional old-time idioms to create his own elegantly innovative clawhammer banjo style. A respected performer and teacher of traditional music, Adam has played at the Kennedy Center and since moving to the South in 2002, has placed in or won most of the major old-time banjo competitions, including three first-place finishes at Clifftop.

One of the most respected musicians in Nashville history, John Hartford is well known for his songwriting, having been honored with four career Grammy Awards, including two for his 1967 recording of “Gentle on My Mind.” Still, few knew of his passion and academic approach toward the study of fiddle music in the later years of his life. After Hartford’s death in 2001, his family discovered over two thousand original and unrecorded fiddle tunes that he had been keeping in file cabinets under his desk. In time, an expansive idea of a project honoring his passion for the instrument began to take shape – first as a book, then as an album.

With decades of performance experience and reputations as stewards of tradition, Scroggins, Lynch Chowning, and Hurt bring this unexplored part of John Hartford’s legacy to life. Scroggins spent years working for the John Hartford Office helping to archive the last of John’s writing and as such became familiar with John’s work. Megan Lynch Chowning, who helped copy edit the accompanying fiddle tune book, is known for her expert knowledge of fiddle tunes and their histories much in the same way John was through his extensive note taking and interviews with masters. Though they never met, John surely would have been in awe of Adam Hurt who is one of the preeminent banjo players in the world. As both a banjo and fiddle player, John and Adam are connected by their deep passion for both preserving and innovating American traditional music. In that same paradoxical way, these three use their combined talent to present a show that is both fresh and familiar, historical and never before heard, and a way to relive the “Goodle Days.” 

https://www.hartfordprojecttour.com/