Scott Napier with $20k donation for the Capital Bluegrass program – photo © Lauren Price Napier
Here’s more evidence of how the City of Owensboro and the Commonwealth of Kentucky are supporting the formation of the Capital Bluegrass and Traditional Music Program at the Owensboro Community and Technical College.
On Friday, the bluegrass program received a $20,000 donation from the Bluegrass Capital Initiative to build a new recording studio for the bluegrass students. This Bluegrass Capital initiative is the effort on the behalf of Owensboro to be recognized as the capital of bluegrass music. They base this effort on the fact that the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum is already located in the city, on top of the Kentucky Guitar Works and luthiery school, located a short distance apart.
The Kentucky legislature authorized $500,000 last year to fund the initiative, from whence this new $20k donation was drawn. The new recording studio is set to be housed in the OCTC Humanities Building to offer professional level recording experiences to students in the bluegrass program.
This generous donation won’t be enough to complete a full studio, and Scott Napier, director of the Capital Bluegrass and Traditional Music Program at the college, says that they are soliciting further contributions for their studio fund, and/or the donation of any studio gear they might be able to use.
Napier says that they have a team of notable bluegrass audio experts helping them with the design of the new studio.
“I’m proud to have award-winning audio engineers on our Capital Bluegrass Studio Advisory Committee, Steve Chandler, Stephen Mougin, and Adam Engelhardt.”
The new funds were presented to the bluegrass program Friday at the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce’s Rooster Booster breakfast. Napier and OCTC President Scott Williams were on hand to accept the check, presented by Steve Johnson with the Bluegrass Music Capital initiative.
A band led by Napier and comprised of Capital Bluegrass program students performed at the breakfast. Wade Papineau was on guitar, Sam Sanford on banjo, Lindsey Wilson on mandolin, and Alex Abend on bass.
More information on the Capital Bluegrass and Traditional Music Program in Owensboro can be found online. Napier asks that anyone interested in contributing to the studio fund would please contact him for more details. His contact info can be found on the program web site.
