Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 5
Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, “the king and queen of the banjo” per Paste magazine, have a musical partnership like no other. Touted as the world’s premier banjo player, Fleck is a 15-time Grammy Award winner who has taken the instrument across multiple genres. Fleck has the virtuosic, jazz-to-classical ingenuity of an iconic instrumentalist and composer with bluegrass roots. His collaborations range from his groundbreaking ensemble Béla Fleck and the Flecktones to a broad array of musical experiments. Washburn is a singer- songwriter and clawhammer banjo player who re-radicalized it by combining it with Far East culture and sounds. She has done fascinating work in folk musical diplomacy in China, contributed to side groups Uncle Earl and The Wu-Force, and has drawn critical acclaim for her solo albums. With one eye on using the banjo to showcase America’s rich heritage and the other pulling it into new and unique realms, Fleck & Washburn present music that is both wildly innovative and familiar.