Red Wine

2023 IBMA DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENT

Red Wine is one of the most important European bluegrass bands,  active since 1978, with a style that encompasses  traditional and contemporary bluegrass, country, gospel, and swing.

Starting 1984 Red Wine has played all over Europe, performing at major international festivals and playing concerts in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Wales, Holland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, and Austria, sharing the stage with the most important bands and acts from the USA and Europe, and gaining a strong following everywhere.

Following the huge success of the 30th anniversary celebration concert in Genova, in 2008, Red Wine started a new yearly adventure in 2009, the Red Wine Bluegrass Party, with international guests like Tim O’Brien, Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Peter Rowan, and The Kruger Brothers. In the past few years the Party has featured a refreshing opening towards other musical genres (Celtic, Dixieland, rock, old-time music), with the valuable help of incredible musicians from Italy and Europe.

http://www.redwinemusic.net/band/?lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/RedWineMusic

Sideline Bluegrass

THUNDER DAN WINS IBMA SONG OF THE YEAR! Sideline was the recipient of the 2019 Song of the Year Award at the 30th Annual International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards. The IBMA Awards Ceremony was held in Raleigh, North Carolina at the Duke Energy Performing Arts Center. Awards were voted on by the professional members of the IBMA.

Sideline is a pedigreed six-piece powerhouse whose style has set the pace in Bluegrass for over two decades. Founders Steve Dilling, Skip Cherryholmes and Jason Moore can all claim their own historical significance to the genre as members of highly awarded groups, multiple Grand Ole Opry appearances and years of national and international touring.

What started as a side project for the seasoned players soon moved to the front and center as the three were joined by talents of Jacob Greer, guitar; Zack Arnold, mandolin; and Jamie Harper, fiddle and began to record and release albums in earnest.

To listen to Sideline reminds the fan of why so many people fall in love with Bluegrass; pulse-pounding drive, songs sung from the heart, perfected timing and dynamics as well as a visceral emotion in the rendering. A band that was started as an off-season fun experiment has become a full-time dream team of players and singers.

The band, recorded or live, moves dynamically from well chosen, hard-hitting neo- traditional covers of classic songs to new material curated by a band with a perfect sense of who they are and what they have to say. Combine all this with their on- stage energy and finesse as well as their powerful and affecting harmonies, and you have the embodiment of the North Carolina Bluegrass sound. Sideline has released three national projects and currently records for the highly awarded Mountain Home Music Company based near Asheville, NC.

https://www.facebook.com/sidelinebluegrass
On Instagram @sidelinebluegrass

The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project

The musical legacy of John Hartford returns with The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project: The Tour, a show consisting of the previously unheard compositions he left behind, performed by musicians from the Grammy-nominated album, The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project Vol. 1, and participants in the upcoming Vol. 2. The show also includes loving interpretations of some of John's most adored classic songs.

Megan Lynch Chowning is a seven-time national fiddle champion and respected Nashville musician and educator. Originally from Redding, CA, Megan spent years touring with legendary country music artists Pam Tillis and Lorrie Morgan, her acclaimed duo with Bill Evans, BEML, and bluegrass stars like Dale Ann Bradley and Larry Cordle. She judged the National Fiddle Championships three times, and is the co-director of the IBMA-award-winning Nashville Acoustic Camps. Megan is known as a captivating performer and storyteller as well as a dedicated educator, focusing on helping people of all ages live their dream of playing folk, bluegrass, and old time music in this vibrant community. She first laid eyes on John Hartford in 1986 at the Strawberry Music Festival. His dancing, his playing, and his hat made a strong impression on her and as she has matured into a torch-bearer of traditional musical education she is often stunned and perpetually honored by her role in preserving and furthering John's legacy. 

Joining her on mandolin and upright bass is Sharon Gilchrist. Sharon has performed and recorded with the Peter Rowan & Tony Rice Quartet, Scott Nygaard & John Reischman in the Harmonic Tone Revealers, The CA Bluegrass Reunion Band, Darol Anger, Uncle Earl, Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands, and many others. She is also a respected and influential music educator offering multiple online mandolin courses at pegheadnation.com and teaching at music camps around the globe.  In 2024, Sharon joined the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Vol. 2 as an artist and co-producer along with Megan Lynch Chowning and Katie Harford Hogue. The Vol. 2 album is due for release in early 2025. Through a lifetime of musical involvement in various bluegrass hotspots from Dallas to Nashville to San Francisco Bay Area, Sharon has distinguished herself as a knowledgeable and valuable artist in the American roots music scene.

Rising-star Rachel Baiman rounds out the ensemble. Rachel has spent the last decade working as a musician in a wide variety of roles, from session musician (Molly Tuttle, Kelsey Waldon, Caroline Spence), to live sidewoman (Kacey Musgraves, Amy Ray), to bandmate and producer. Known in the bluegrass and old time world for her work with progressive acoustic duo 10 String Symphony, Rachel represents the new generation that carries on John Hartford’s legacy as both an instrumentalist and songwriter. Since 2017, Baiman has toured her solo project internationally with appearances at the Kilkenny Roots Festival in Ireland, the Mullum Music Festival in Australia, and the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage in Washington, DC.

One of the most respected musicians in Nashville history, John Hartford is well known for his songwriting, having been honored with four career Grammy Awards, including two for his 1967 recording of “Gentle on My Mind.” Still, few knew of his passion and academic approach toward the study of fiddle music in the later years of his life. After Hartford’s death in 2001, his family discovered over two thousand original and unrecorded fiddle tunes that he had been keeping in file cabinets under his desk. In time, an expansive idea of a project honoring his passion for the instrument began to take shape – first as a book, then as an album.

With decades of performance experience and reputations as stewards of tradition, the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project Vol. 1: The Tour brings this unexplored part of John Hartford’s legacy to life. Megan Lynch Chowning, who helped copy edit the accompanying fiddle tune book, is known for her expert knowledge of fiddle tunes and their histories much in the same way John was through his extensive note taking and interviews with masters. As an educator, Sharon has helped carry the torch of tradition through to future generations. As a performer she has worked for decades with many of John's musical contemporaries. She and these artists share John's ethos of collaborations grounded in tradition while celebrating new sounds and personal expression. As a writer, Rachel attempts to make sense of the world in a down to earth way. As both a banjo and fiddle player, John and Rachel are connected not only by the fact that Rachel lives in what used to be John’s guest house where she can watch the boats pass by the same Cumberland River that inspired much of John’s writing, but also by their deep passion for both preserving and innovating American traditional music. In that same paradoxical way, these three use their combined talent to present a show that is both fresh and familiar, historical and never before heard, and a way to relive the “Goodle Days.” 

https://www.hartfordprojecttour.com/