Hank Smith accepts banjo position at UNC

Raleigh, NC-based banjo player Hank Smith has accepted the banjo lecturer position with the Music Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He will be offering private lessons at the school beginning in the Fall 2017 semester.

Smith performs regularly with Hank, Pattie & the Current, a progressive string band also based in Raleigh. He is a South Carolina native who is well-versed on his instrument in a wide variety of styles, including bluegrass, jazz, and classical. In his non-musical time, Hank is also an author, and has published a novel of fiction about life on the road with a bluegrass band called Leaving Auburndale.

UNC students will be able to take advantage of his many years of experience teaching banjo lessons, and his overall mastery of the instrument. Interested students should contact the Music Department for more information.

This is the second bluegrass-specific faculty member hired at UNC, following Russell Johnson who came on last Fall to manage The Carolina Bluegrass Band, the school’s official bluegrass ensemble for students.

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John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.