Speaker Session, Lee Bidgood Musical Traditions & The Global String Band

Date: Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Time: 7 p.m. ET

Location: In-person at the Birthplace of Country Music, Performance Theatre and streamed on Radio Bristol’s YouTube Channel

Cost: Free and open to the public

REGISTER HERE

Join us on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 for our Speaker Session with Lee Bidgood.

Musical traditions based on groups of stringed instruments are common around the world – how are these bands different and similar to each other, and how do they help us all connect to each other and the environments where we find ourselves? With this Speaker Sessions presentation, Lee Bidgood will introduce a global range of string band sounds and stories, with media and live examples.

Lee Bidgood’s research on Czech bluegrass has been supported by two Fulbright grants and inspired the documentary film Banjo Romantika (2015) as well as the book Czech Bluegrass: Notes From the Heart of Europe (2017), An early member of the Steep Canyon Rangers and Big Fat Gap, Lee plays bluegrass, old-time, and early musics on fiddle, mandolin, viola, and viola da gamba.  As professor in East Tennessee State University’s Department of Appalachian Studies, he teaches courses in ethnomusicology and Bluegrass, Old Time, and Roots Music Studies, leads a mandolin orchestra and Global String Band, and directs the Institute for Appalachian Music and Culture.