Wyatt Ellis on From The Top – photo © Sally Bebawny Photography
We have written a number of times recently about From The Top, a program that identifies and highlights young musical artists during their teen years. They not only offer them visibility during the very early stages of a promising career, they also provide training to help these budding performers handle non-musical aspects of the profession.
From The Top is distributed nationally on NPR as a radio program, and this year they have broken with a habit of featuring only young classical musicians, and worked in a pair of traditional musical artists as well. Just a few weeks ago, North Carolina old time banjoist Bayla Davis, was profiled in an episode on rural America, and the most recent show, focused on Nashville, has included mandolin wunderkind Wyatt Ellis.
Regular readers of Bluegrass Today will be familiar with Wyatt, who at only 14 years of age has two albums of his music on offer, multiple appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, and his own band that performs at major festivals and venues. His most recent recording, Happy Valley, finds him in collaboration with some of the finest current practitioners of the mandolin, like Sierra Hull, Jake Workman, Scott Napier, Alan Bibey, Mike Compton, and Marty Stuart.
Not too shabby for a kid who can’t even drive yet!
The full Nashville episode of From The Top (Show #448) can be heard online, via any of the popular podcast aggregators, or on soundcloud.
Here is a brief video clip from Wyatt’s segment where he plays an original instrumental of his, The Winds of Rowan County.
From The Top adds new videos every day online, so more from Ellis may appear there before long.
Well done, Wyatt!
