The board of EBMA had a very intensive meeting covering various topics. After a round table review of last 12 months finances were discussed as well as the current and future format of the European Bluegrass Summit, the development of the EBMA Festival Network, the launch of the European Bluegrass Pioneer and Personality Project, and finally a new form of constitution of the board was defined and agreed upon. As a member of EBMA or as a subscriber of BLUEGRASS EUROPE you will read all about this in the next issue of Bluegrass Europe to appear mid-January 2012. And if you're neither - please join in and support EBMA's activities for bluegrass music in Europe [go here to join...].

18.08.2011: Congratulations to Lilly for receiving this well merited award!

IBMA DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED

Nashville, TN: The International Bluegrass Music Association is proud to announce the recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Award, an honor which recognizes individuals in the bluegrass music industry who have fostered the music’s image with developments that will broaden the genre’s recognition and accessibility.  The following people will be honored at the Special Awards Luncheon on Thursday, September 29, 2011, at the Nashville Convention Center during the IBMA Business Conference:

• Greg Cahill
• Bill Knowlton
• Lilly Pavlak
• Geoff Stelling
• Roland White

Lilly Pavlak is a journalist, photographer and sometimes booking agent/tour manager originally from the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia), now living in Switzerland. An active journalist for more than three decades who has been enormously important in telling the European bluegrass story in the U.S. (and vice versa), Pavlak is first and foremost a hardcore bluegrass fan who has devoted a large portion of her life and energy to promoting the music and artists she loves.  The first American artist Pavlak heard in Czechoslovakia was Pete Seeger, in 1964. “I had never seen a live American before,” Lilly recalls. “We learned the worst things about ‘American imperialists’ in school and some people even believed they ate little children!  After the first tones of the banjo, I knew this was the strange instrument from the hillbilly music I liked so much.  That was a defining moment for me, and for the bluegrass movement that followed.  Nowadays the Czech Republic claims the highest concentration of bluegrass musicians on earth!”  

In 1975 Pavlak went to her first folk festival at Lenzburg Castle in Switzerland.  The next day she flew to America for the first time, later returning with 20 pounds of bluegrass LPs and a guitar.  She taped the albums and sent cassettes to her “Tramp Music” friends behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia—which was their only opportunity to hear bluegrass for 12 years.  On a shoestring budget, Pavlak has returned to the States and Canada many times to hear and write about bluegrass music.  She subscribed to American bluegrass publications and bought music to educate herself and her friends in Europe about new bands and trends.  Lilly is one of the original members of the Swiss Bluegrass Music Association and the Bluegrass Association of the Czech Republic.  Despite health issues in recent years, Pavlak attends nearly every bluegrass event in central Europe, sending reviews and photos to the bluegrass press around the world.  “I feel home is where the heart is, and my heart is where good music is,” Lilly says.  “I was always kind of a bridge between East and West, trying to put musicians from different countries together and make them friends.”