Mandolin Moments

Finnders & Youngberg, Colorado’s premier Americana quintet, will add yet another honor to their impressive resume: they’ve been chosen as an official showcase act for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass conference in Nashville, Tenn., this fall.  They are one of just 13 acts invited to perform during the bluegrass industry’s biggest and most important week.

Festival Mozaic has announced its 2012 summer season, which will take place July 12-22 in the most charismatic spaces across California's Central Coast including Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, Chapel Hill in wine country, Hearst Castle overlooking the sparkling Pacific Ocean, and Mission San Miguel .  The theme, "In The Footsteps of Giants," will showcase a lineage of masterworks which inspired – and were inspired by – phenomenal composers over the ages.

The San Francisco Mandolin Orchestra with singers Susan Gundunas and Twila Ehmcke will be performing one of the gems of the Baroque music era, Stabat Mater, written in 1736 by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.

The Newport Festivals Foundation has announced the lineup for the 2012 Newport Folk Festival set to take place July 28-29 at Fort Adams State Park.

This album is sophisticated urban pop played with a combination of acoustic instruments usually found in bluegrass bands. Any further references to blugrass is hard to find on the album.

A neurological disorder called dystonia is estimated to have ended the careers of at least one member of every major American metropolitan orchestra. Dystonia has claimed the livelihoods of musicians across genres including the acclaimed pianist Leon Fleisher of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, former first oboist of the Chicago Symphony Alex Klein, acoustic guitarist Billy McLaughlin, classical guitarist Liona Boyd, keyboard player Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and others.

Radim Zenkl, the Czech-born, California-based magician of the mandolin has been on the road and onstage since he arrived in the USA more than twenty years ago. He recently swung through my hometown of Portland, Oregon and performed his eclectic solo show to a packed house of enthusiastic fans.

Rio Con Brio started out to make one CD. As they recorded tracks, they realized they had two albums on their hands. One is their third choro album, the other is the debut of fado singer Alexandra Coutinho.

Luckily, Alexandra Coutinho and Rio Con Brio decided to make this a stand alone album. The plan was to feature Alexandra Coutinho on some tracks of Rio Con Brio's Caprice.

Caprice is an album by a guitar and mandolin duo playing mostly choro standards. It could be a challenge to make this fly. Rio Con Brio have pulled it off.