Country

Switzerland

Applied for

Membership & Development, At large

1st Bluegrass Album

Kenny Baker & Josh Graves Tennessee – Kentucky Favorites

What Bluegrass means to me 

“Come for the music, stay for the community” has always been my motto and experience with bluegrass music. I have helped to build communities in Switzerland and Europe and have felt part of a worldwide family, even though I don’t understand myself as a professional musician. I have been happy to contribute with my various skills in finance, administration, project management and also leading organisations. After some years’ break, I am now prepared to pick up ends and get involved again.

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

Interim treasurer EBMA (10.23), interim treasurer SBMA (since 05.23), Wernick Method Bluegrass Jamming teacher (2014), Bluegrass concert promoter and tour-organiser, hobby-musician (fiddle, guitar, bass), ex-chairperson EBMA (until 2015), SBMA (1999-2004) and Bluegrass in Basel (2006-2014), ex-board member IBMA.

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

Accounting for and administration of Associations, extensive experience with Swiss association law, acquired leadership expertise. Besides a certificate as accounting officer I also have a degree in PR, a Master degree in culture management and a degree in fundraising management for NPOs.

How can you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

With my experience in bookkeeping and finances as well as organisational development, I would like to continue in my capacity as treasurer. I would serve in the constituency at large, preferably, or membership development, contributing my broad experience and knowledge of association law and development.

Country

France / UK

Applied for

Membership & Development, Events & Bookers, At large

1st Bluegrass Album

Old & In The Way

What Bluegrass means to me 

Bluegrass is above all else a “community” to me, where there is no star system and generosity is a fundamental value. I love the music and I love the community. Where else but in Bluegrass will the leader of the band give equal measure to every member? This is what I see for the EBMA.

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

Since 1980s : Performing Musician in bands Pony Express, Moonshine BG Band, Moonshine and poniXpress 2.0
2002-10 : FBMA Chair
– Magazine editor 2003-06
– ran Spring Jam Meeting
– co-founded Winter Meeting
2008-12 : EBMA Vice Chair
2006-present : Founder, chair and artistic director Bluegrass in La Roche
2018 : IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award
2023 : IBMA Leadership Bluegrass participant
2020-26 : IBMA Board of Directors (International Constituency)
– Launched International Band Performance Grant 2022
– Launched 1st International Pavilion and Stage at IBMA 2023

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

• International Management and Cross cultural communication
• Conference, Seminar and Executive Retreat organisation and facilitation
• Business strategy, marketing and organisation design
• Project Management and Project Portfolio Management
• Executive Education and Development (directed in-house MBA program for luxury hotel group across 3 continents for 10 years)

How will you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

Use the power of the internet to bring constituencies of people together in networks, forums, webinars and meet-ups to exchange experiences and ideas, build projects and to grow a stronger coalition of forces for Bluegrass across all of Europe for all players and activists on stage and behind the scenes.
Create a strong structure that will continue to serve after I am no longer involved.

Country

Belgium

Applied for

Events & Bookers, Industry and Education

1st Bluegrass Album

Kenny Baker plays Bill Monroe + Del McCoury Classic Bluegrass

What Bluegrass means to me 

Bluegrass is my passion, a way of life, a unique tradition of story telling that runs deep in the veins of the every person in the global Bluegrass family. Jams, festivals and concerts are magical family reunions with music as common language to share our stories

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

I am completely hooked on Bluegrass since the moment I discovered it. To my own frustration this was only later in life when I was 24 years old and was invited to play fiddle in a band. I was classically trained and needed to learn myself how to improvise and find a new sound. I went to Tughill Bluegrass festival in upstate New York and earned my first dollars on stage there being invited to join some of the bands there and got to jam with the Gibson brothers, Becky Buller and Mike Marshall and dropped by Big Bob’s BG jam in Manhattan. I bought myself a fiddle in California (lower bridge, more nasal and crunchy sound) and have been playing in several Belgium based BG bands at multiple BG and non-BG festivals. I join EWOB every year with my 2 sons (4 and 6 years old), I co-hosted the Foxbarn festival, went to sorefingers UK and I contributed to the recording of André Dal’s Beyond the Tagus river album. Finishing 5 years of classical conservatoire I also am still active as a freelance classical violinist and also studied the Master after Master in culture management at the University of Antwerp.

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

European network organisations, higher music education, culture management

How will you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

To be discussed in relation to actual needs and vision for the future of EBMA

Country

Netherlands

Applied for

Events & Bookers

1st Bluegrass Album

Memories by Doc Watson & Lonesome Road By Doc and Merle Watson

What Bluegrass means to me 

Joy, Connection, openness. The social and open aspect of bluegrass music that binds so many different people together in a positive way and the Incredible musicality is something that inspires me.

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

I am the director of the Rotterdam Bluegrass Festival since 2009. For the RBF I am responsible for the Programming/line up, Finances and organisation. The RBF attracts 12000 visitors in a weekend.

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

My experience lies in organisation, booking/artist management and finances.
Organisation: The RBF team is an open organisation not top down. An organisation should be open, inclusive and concise about fair practise. organizing the Rotterdam Bluegrass Festival, the last 12 years, has given me a lot of experience in working and connecting with a lot a lot of different people, companies, artists, entities, etc.
I like to host and lead meetings in order to facilitate others to work with Bluegrass and encourage them to start working on the same goals; Promoting, supporting and professionalize European Bluegrass. Finances: My experience is in Government and private project funding, budgeting and project planning. Commercial sales, Working with suppliers and other commercial parties.

How will you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

First, I would like to contribute in helping set up and structure the new board and organisation of the EBMA and in doing so make sure the EBMA will become an open, transparent and inclusive organisation where everybody young, old, blue or green should feel at home and is heard.
Then start working together with the constituencies to see what the needs are, then working out projects (network, talent support, jam network, marketing etc). grow visibility and communication of the EBMA. Contribute to support and promote European Bluegrass, musicians in a positive and constructive manner.

Country

USA residing in Germany

Applied for

Membership & Development, At large

1st Bluegrass Album

Old and In the Way

What Bluegrass means to me 

Bluegrass always feels like home and nourishes my soul. The technicality and precision mean discipline and calm to me. Bluegrass has also means inclusion, all are welcome to tell their story in classic 1 4 5 or something entirely different and unique!

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

I am a fiddle player who hails from north Florida, where I had a community of bluegrassers and played professionally for about 7 years. I have continued to play a bit as a hobby since, with some gigs in the UK.  I go to a festival at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Florida once or twice each year for my musical inspiration – this keeps me nicely connected with the US scene and musician friends from the area.

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

I can dedicate about an average of 2 hours per week. Having been in office jobs in the past 10 years, I can manage communications or surveys on developing the organisation further. I have also volunteered/worked at festivals in the past, and would be happy to do EBMA related things at a European festival. Strengths are: positivity and inspiring motivation, IT tools and email communications, gathering feedback and sharing summaries.

How will you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

1. I wish to work on the Jam Calendar and provide members a monthly Jam Newsletter, after gathering highlights from the Jam Hosts around Europe. I hope this would inspire members and musicians to travel a little across borders to seek out each other. We should take advantage of the continental proximity!

Country

Switzerland

Applied for

Membership & Development, Artists, At large

1st Bluegrass Album

The Bluegrass Album Band, California Connection

What Bluegrass means to me 

Bluegrass has now become my second family. I meet up regularly with like-minded friends, play the music and have a lot of fun doing it. I simply couldn’t imagine my life without bluegrass.

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

I have been listening to and playing bluegrass (5-string) for over 35 years and teach the instrument in my spare time. I have been playing in my own bluegrass band “Lounge Pickers” for over 10 years. I also support the Swiss bluegrass scene and am well connected in Switzerland – but also in nearby Europe. I have been an active member of the committee of the “Bluegrass Openair Festival” in Urnäsch (CH) for 5 years and maintain good connections with European bluegrass bands. I have also been a member of the EBMA Board for about 4 years.

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

My musical contacts in Europe help me to better understand the wishes and problems of the bluegrass base. Through my work as a software engineer and process manager, my strengths lie in pragmatic solutions in the field of IT and related systems – especially web development. This also includes knowledge of social media and general communication on the Internet.

How will you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

The website and the entire “Listings” section on ebma.org were designed by me and the former EBMA board. I was largely responsible for the implementation. This is where I would like to start and drive forward and modernize the development, thereby creating added value for every single member. Be it for interested members, musicians, bands, companies, jam organizers, artists, but also for concert and festival organizers. This also includes the expansion and networking of an event calendar. My focus in all of this is clearly on Europe.

Country

USA living in Ireland

Applied for

Artists, Media, Industry and Education

1st Bluegrass Album

Alan Bibey’s In the Blue Room.

What Bluegrass means to me 

Bluegrass is an important source of musical and personal fulfillment for me. Both jamming and talking with folks from around the world about this music has given me some of my most treasured memories, and I know there are more to come.

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

I have been playing bluegrass since I was 10 and played/toured semi-professionally in the early 2000s. This encompassed playing at the White House, taping televised performances for the program Bluegrass Express on ETV, several residencies performing at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, and showcases at IBMA conferences. I am currently pursuing my PhD in Musicology where my doctoral research investigates bluegrass in an international context. I have written about bluegrass in an academic context for several years now and have presented that research at several refereed conferences. In addition, I am a founding member of the SMT (Society for Music Theory) Interest Group for bluegrass, country and american folk music. I continue to play and find great joy in the lifelong friendships I’ve made as a result of the bluegrass scene.

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

In addition to my experience in the bluegrass community, I hold a degree in classical guitar performance and two degrees in music theory. In academia, I have worked as a tutor and graduate assistant lecturer for both small, liberal arts conservatories and extremely large state schools. I have found that these institutions contain a (higher-than-expected) number of students who already play bluegrass or who are interested in learning more about the style. In my lectures, I have used bluegrass music to illustrate elements of musical form, harmony, harmonic function and as the source material for ear training exercises. As both a performer and a researcher, I see the important connection bluegrass music and culture is forming with the academic world. Dr. Bidgood recently raised this point in one of our meetings and I agree that institutional partnerships with active scholars or collegiate bluegrass communities could positively benefit the EBMA in terms of recruitment, exposure, representation and structural support.
Outside of my musical endeavors, I spent several years in industrial project management in the United States. I served as part of the executive team deployed by a venture capitalist firm, which specialized in insolvency. Our task was to return newly-acquired holdings to profitability. I have extensive experience drafting and enacting strategic plans related to organizational restructuring and process improvement. In another role, I created and delivered learning and personal development content to a company of over six hundred employees both virtually and in-person. This included audio/visual editing, recording, website and in-app design as well as marketing campaigns and other class management-related responsibilities. I would be honored to use my skills to help foster growth, community and education in the international bluegrass scene.

How will you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

I would like to be involved in any way that is helpful to the organization.

Country

France

Applied for

Media, Industry and Education

1st Bluegrass Album

 The Country Gentlemen “On The Road”, Folkways edition.

What Bluegrass means to me 

I played many music styles. But if I like the sound of Bluegrass music, I also love the way people share and spread it. On my first Bluegrass jams, I was kindly helped by perfect strangers, and this happens all the time with newcomers. There is always someone glad to help, this is the only kind of music where it seems “written in the genes”.

Everything I experienced since my first Bluegrass years (jamming, playing, attending workshops or concerts, working in associations or as a music teacher, put together a project…) was always a collective success.
Bluegrass is definitely a collective and friendly experience. I love that.

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

Musician, creation of Jam Hall, Kids On Bluegrass Europe promoter, 4 years FBMA webmaster and promoter, Wernick Method teacher

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

Teaching, Kids On Bluegrass Europe, webmastering…

How will you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

Developing KOBE in Europe, web communication, developing Bluegrass teaching.

Country

USA, resident in Germany

Applied for

Artists, Media, Industry and Education

1st Bluegrass Album

Stoney Lonesome (with Kate MacKenzie) — Lonesome Tonight (1991)

What Bluegrass means to me 

When I spoke with Pete Seeger before his passing, he spoke with me about how his own mentor, Carl Sandburg, told him about how Swedes were treated in Chicago, and called “dirty Swedes”; I am descended from those “dirty Swedes”, at once American and also European, scrabbling at existence, whether in the famined potato fields, the New World’s railroads, in the factories, or tuck-pointing on the sides of Chicago’s skyscrapers. Like Pete, the son of an academic, I was the son of a physician and a poet, yet I hungered for the beautiful whine and whirr of the bluer side; that’s what I found in bluegrass, after a childhood of classical, jazz and folk.

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

– Composer: I wrote the premiere “bluegrass liturgy” used in the US, called “Light into the World”, 20 years ago, which is being used by countless congregations around the country, and ran workshops (funded by the Lilly Endowment) in Colorado, Minnesota, New York, and Sweden. Dozens of other compositions and liturgies in the same 4-part harmony and bluegrass arrangements have been published, including “Mountain Vespers” which has been performed for 22 years without fail at Holden Village, a Christian Retreat Center with thousands of ecumenical visitors per year.
– Performer: I released several albums as a vocalist, songwriter, and instrumentalist, including one (“Stolen Shack”) that was featured by NPR’s All Songs Considered, and brought the sounds of bluegrass and old-time music together with improvised Baroque music.
– Educator: I have given workshops, spoken about, and taught at the university level on composition, vocals, gospel music, music history, Doc Watson, guitar, mandolin, and upright bass, across the United States, and in Sweden and Germany.
– Publisher: I have published hundreds of books in all genres (see Blooming Twig, the publishing company I founded in 2004). I have also published all of my own musical scores, and have extensive experience in distribution channels.
– Author/Historian: My full-length biography of Doc Watson (2010/2012) “Blind but Now I See” won the Biography of the Year Award by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and was a runner up in the Foreword Book of the Year Awards in the Biography category.

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

Extensive branding and marketing experience, and other nonprofit, business, and academic work

How will you like to contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

I’d like to get involved however I’m needed.

Country

Netherlands

Applied for

Artists, At large

1st Bluegrass Album

Joe Val Live in Holland

What Bluegrass means to me 

Bluegrass to me, besides a the description of a genre of music which I play, means a great deal to me personally. Bluegrass comes with a great (international) community which shaped a big part of my life and deserves more European attention.

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

Bluegrass musician since 2014. Former student at the ETSU Bluegrass, Old Time & Country music studies program.

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

Being a (semi) professional bluegrass artist for the past few years touring in many different countries in the EU and US.

How will you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

Help connecting and uniting all bluegrass lovers/players/enthusiasts/listeners/collectors/promotors/bookers/ throughout Europe in a refreshing way.

Country

Ireland

Applied for

Artists, Media, At large

1st Bluegrass Album

The Dillards Back Porch Bluegrass

What Bluegrass means to me 

I’ve been a Bluegrass radio host for over 20 years so I can’t imagine my life without some involvement with the Bluegrass community.

Present and past Involvement in Bluegrass

Bluegrass radio host for 20+ years

Experience and expertise you have that will help EBMA

Service on Corporate Boards for many years

How will you contribute to EBMA beyond your current involvement?

Promote EBMA through my several international Bluegrass Radio shows.