Sacred Heart University Community Theatre Presents Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn

Sacred Heart University Community Theatre presents Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn.

With one eye on using the banjo to showcase America's rich heritage and the other pulling the noble instrument from its most familiar arena into new and unique realms, Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn's second album, Echo in the Valley, is simultaneously familiar and wildly innovative.

"Some of the most interesting things in the world come together in strange and unique ways and show our diversity," said Fleck, a 15-time Grammy award winner who is often considered the world's premier banjo player. "The banjo is just one of those things. It's a great example of how the world can combine things and create surprising hybrids," a reference to the ancestral African roots of the banjo combining with Scotch-Irish music in Appalachia.

Echo in the Valley is the follow up to Fleck and Washburn's acclaimed, self-titled debut that earned the 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album. This time around, the mission was to take their double banjo combination of three-finger and clawhammer styles to the next level. The results are fascinating, especially considering their strict rules for recording: all sounds must be created by the two of them, the only instruments used are banjos (they have seven between them, ranging from a ukulele to an upright bass banjo), and they must be able to perform every recorded song live.

SHU Community Theatre, 1420 Post Road, Fairfield on Friday, October 14, at 8 p.m.. Tickets $65 orchestra, $79 balcony. For tickets, visit www.shucommunitytheatre.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.