See Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn & More at Spruce Peak Arts

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Spruce Peak Arts, whose mission is to inspire, educate, and entertain, is thrilled to announce their latest line-up which includes Vermont bluegrass staple, Beg, Steal or Borrow, for Presidents' Day on February 17th at 7pm and the “King and Queen of the Banjo” Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, on April 6th at 7PM. Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center is location at 122 Hourglass Drive Stowe, Vermont.  Tickets are $65-$85 and can be purchased at sprucepeakarts.org or by calling 802.760.4634.

Enjoy a homegrown in Vermont concert, supporting local artists, when Vermont bluegrass staple Beg, Steal or Borrow returns to Spruce Peak Arts. Their latest album OLD MOUNTAIN TIME “displays a knack for sticky melodies and an appreciation for bluegrass convention” according to the Seven Days VT. Additionally, according to Blue Grass Today, they “exceeded expectations by creating an impressive repertoire of original songs that boast both contemporary and archival appeal.”

Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn will be performing from their second album ECHO IN THE VALLEY. 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 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,” reflects Béla, a fifteen-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 Béla and Abigail'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 and find things to do together that we had not done before,” says Béla. “We're expressing different emotions through past techniques and going to deeper places.” 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.

Beg, Steal or Borrow on February 17th at 7pm

“King and Queen of the Banjo” Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, on April 6th at 7PM

Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center is location at 122 Hourglass Drive Stowe, Vermont. 

Tickets are $20-$40 and can be purchased at sprucepeakarts.org or by calling 802.760.4634.

Photos are available upon request.

Béla Freck and Abigail Washburn, “the king and queen of the banjo” (Paste Magazine), have a musical partnership like no other. Béla Fleck is a fifteen-time Grammy Award winner who has taken the instrument across multiple genres, and Abigail Washburn a singer-songwriter and clawhammer banjo player who re-radicalized it by combining it with Far East culture and sounds. The two met at a square dance, began collaborating musically and eventually fell in love. Over the years, they played together most visibly in the Sparrow Quartet alongside Ben Sollee and Casey Driessen and informally at a pickin' party here, a benefit there, or occasionally popping up in each other's solo shows. Fans of tradition-tweaking acoustic fare eagerly anticipated that Béla & Abigail would begin making music together as a duo.

Fleck has the virtuosic, jazz-to-classical ingenuity of an iconic instrumentalist and composer with bluegrass roots. His collaborations range from his ground-breaking standard-setting ensemble Béla Fleck and the Flecktones to a staggeringly broad array of musical experiments. From writing concertos for full symphony orchestra, exploring the banjo's African roots, to jazz duos with Chick Corea, many tout that Béla Fleck is the world's premier banjo player. Washburn has the earthy sophistication of a postmodern, old-time singer-songwriter who has drawn critical acclaim for her solo albums. She has done fascinating work in folk musical diplomacy in China, presented an original theatrical production, and has contributed to singular side groups Uncle Earl and The Wu-Force. In addition to being named a TED Fellow in 2012, Abigail was recently named the first US-China Fellow at Vanderbilt University, in addition to Carolina Performing Arts/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's DisTil Fellow for 2018-2020.

On stage, Fleck & Washburn will perform pieces from their Grammy-winning self-titled debut as well as their new record, Echo in the Valley (Rounder 2017). 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 & Abigail meet in the mean, head-on, to present music that feels wildly innovative and familiar at the same time. Whether at home, on stage or on record, their deep bond, combined with the way their distinct musical personalities and banjo styles interact, makes theirs a picking partnership unlike any other on the planet.

Beg, Steal or Borrow, since its formation in 2013 with a mission to resurrect the music of Old and In the Way, Beg, Steal or Borrow has appeared at festivals and venues throughout the northeastern United States and features an ever-growing repertoire of original music and classic covers.  Known for their vocal harmony and high-energy instrumental arrangements, Beg, Steal or Borrow has won bluegrass festival band competitions at Podunk, Grey Fox, and Thomas Point Beach, hence being dubbed a “Triple Crown Bluegrass Band” by Bluegrass Today.  Based in Vermont, the quintet released its celebrated debut album of original music, Old Mountain Time, in 2019.  Beg, Steal or Borrow is Jeremy Sicely on guitar/vocals, Luke Auriemmo on banjo/vocals, Roland Clark on fiddle/vocals, Fran Forim on upright bass/vocals and Geoff Goodhue on mandolin/vocals.

Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization whose mission is to inspire, educate, and entertain. The 420-seat multi-use theatre, which opened in December 2010, offers world-renowned entertainment as well as emerging artists and performers from around the region, state, nation and world. 

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