Non-US bluegrass news

Last month, we passed along some information about The Sparrow Quartet's lengthy tour of China. The quartet includes Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck on banjo, Casey Driessen on fiddle, and Ben Sollee on cello. Casey created a slide show of photos

Special Consensus is getting ready to cross the ocean just after the new year, spending two and a half weeks in the British Isles during January. They have stops in Ireland, Scotland and England, including a performance and workshop at

Our friends at the European Bluegrass Music Association have launched their own blog, The European Bluegrass Blog. It is intended to replace the EBMA's email newsletter, and will be updated regularly with news of interest to the European bluegrass community. Bands,

Jer Boon just wrote in to tell us about a blog that has just launched for British bluegrassers. UKBluegrass.com aims to provide all the information bluegrass musicians and fans in the UK might need. They plan to post news about gig

Chris Thile will be a guest this afternoon (evening) on BBC 3 Radio's Late Junction program. The show airs live at 5:15 p.m. (EST), or 10:15 p.m. London time, and features Chris in a largely improvised performance with Scottish musician

The Sao Paulo Bluegrass Music Association has established a Brazilian Bluegrass Hall Of Fame, which they call The Brazilian Bluegrass Pioneers. They have started a new section of their web site to honor the musicians who kindled an interest in bluegrass

We posted last week about some of the press coverage from China of the current Sparrow Quartet tour. The band features Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn on picked and non-picked banjo respectively, with Casey Driessen on fiddle and Ben Sollee

I found an interesting piece on Xinhua online, an English language version of ChinaView.cn about a set of performances this weekend by Sparrow Quartet in Bejing. The group includes Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn on banjos, with Casey Driessen on

Well, that's a bit misleading I suppose. They do, I'm sure, have speed limits in Japan. The band No Speed Limit is not traveling to Japan anytime soon that I am aware of. They are, however, being listened to there.

We just heard from our friend Chris Stuart, that he will be teaching the songwriting class at next April's Sore Fingers Summer School in England. The camp runs April 9-13, 2007 and is held at the Kingham Hill School, located