Bill Evans and Megan Lynch in Europe, 14-28 March

Bill Evans and Megan Lynch will be teaching banjo and fiddle respectively at the annual Sore Fingers Week in England from 24 to 28 March. They will also be playing as a duo on two dates in Ireland (14, 15 March), three in England (16, 17, 20 March), and two in Scotland (21, 22 March). Full details are on their joint MySpace site.

First Annual Summer Fiddle Camp, Czech Republic, 21-25 July

Fiddler, bandleader, and luthier Jiří (George) Králík reports that his First Annual Summer Fiddle Camp will be held from 21 to 25 July 2008 at Tyniste nad Orlici, in the foothills of Orlicke Hory, 130 km east of Prague, in the Czech Republic.

Classes in English and Czech, for over five hours a day, will include bluegrass, old-time, swing, classical technique, and musical theory. Full details can be found here.

Darrell Scott & Casey Driessen in Europe

Darrell Scott, award-winning and Grammy-nominated songwriter, record producer, and member of Steve Earle’s Bluegrass Dukes, will be playing at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, Scotland, and will then tour the Netherlands with fiddler Casey Driessen.

Celtic Connections:
Jan. 30, 7:30 p.m. ABC, Darrell Scott Band
Jan. 31, 12:00 p.m. The Festival Club
Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m. Glasgow Concert Hall: Transatlantic Sessions with Casey Driessen
Feb. 3, 7:30 p.m. Glasgow Concert Hall: Transatlantic Sessions with Casey Driessen

The Netherlands with Casey Driessen:
Feb. 4, 8:30 p.m. De Schalm, Westwoud
Feb. 5, TBA NPS Radio 6 Live, Hilversum
Feb. 5, 8:30 p.m. In The Woods, Lage Vuursche
Feb. 6, 8:00 p.m. Paradiso, Amsterdam
Feb. 7, 8:30 p.m. Transvaria (Musemix), The Hague
Feb. 8, TBA De Slotplaats, Bakkeveen

Darrell's new album Modern hymns, due for release in April 2008, features Del McCoury, Alison Krauss & Mary Gauthier, Sam Bush, Danny Thompson, Tim O’Brien, Dirk Powell, and many others. He is the winner of the Americana Music Association’s 2007 Song of the Year, with 'Hank Williams’ ghost', from his sixth album, The invisible man. The video for the song is on YouTube.

Fiddle Hangout

Eric Schlange, webmaster of the Banjo Hangout, sends this message

... to let everyone know about a new website I just opened last Friday - the FIDDLE Hangout! Yes, you heard right - we're spreading the Hangout love to the fiddle world! The same powerful features you've come to enjoy at the Banjo Hangout, including discussion forums and a free myHangout homepage, complete with blogging capabilities, photo albums, MP3 music archives, and events calendar!

My plan is to continue expanding the site's content and features as things progress. (We'll certainly be adding a tab/sheet music area in the near future, for one thing.)

But for now, the site's only been live since Friday, and it's already averaging over 2,000 visitors per day. The forums are hopping, and lots of new folks are signing up daily. So if you play fiddle, or know someone who does, be sure to check out the Fiddle Hangout! This is gonna be good!

Contact Eric by e-mail.