Béla Fleck: My Bluegrass Heart at The State Theatre of Ithaca

DSP Shows & The State Theatre of Ithaca Present:
Béla Fleck: My Bluegrass Heart
Featuring: Michael Cleveland, Dominick Leslie, Jeff Partin, Mark Schatz & Jake Stargel
Sunday, December 6th, 2026
Doors: 6:30pm | Show: 7:30pm
Tickets: https://tixr.com/e/195289

Over the last four decades, Béla Fleck has made a point of boldly going where no banjo player has gone before, a musical journey that has earned him 19 Grammys in nine different fields, including Country, Pop, Jazz, Instrumental, Classical and World Music.But his roots are in bluegrass, and that’s where he returns with his celebrated bluegrass project,My Bluegrass Heart.The Grammy award-winning album,My Bluegrass Heartis the third chapter of atrilogy which began with the 1988 album,Drive, and continued in 1991 with The Bluegrass Sessions.Fleck’s band spotlights a multi-generational gamut of the best of bluegrass players, all sporting a myriad of Grammy Awards and nominations, as well as gigantic piles of IBMA awards for their instruments: fiddler Michael Cleveland, mandolinist Dominick Leslie, Jeff Partin on dobro, bassist/multi-instrumentalist Mark Schatz, and Jake Stargel on guitar.

Just in case you aren’t familiar with Béla Fleck, there are many who say he’s the premier banjo player in the world. Others claim that Fleck has virtually reinvented the image and the sound of the banjo through a remarkable performing andrecording career that has taken him all over the musical map and on a range of solo projects and collaborations. If you are familiar with Fleck, you know that he just loves to play the banjo, and put it into unique settings. A nineteen-time Grammy Award-winner, Fleck has the virtuosic, jazz-to-classical ingenuity of an iconic instrumentalist and composer with bluegrass roots.For over 30 years, he has led Béla Fleck and The Flecktones, the groundbreaking quartet inspired by jazz, funk, bluegrass and beyond. From writing three banjo concertos for full symphony orchestra to exploring the banjo’s African roots with the award-winning 2009 documentary Throw Down Your Heart, many tout that Béla Fleck is the world’s premier banjo player. As Jon Pareles wrote for The New York Times,“That’s a lot of territory for five strings.” Fleck has collaborated with Indian musical royalty Zakir Hussain and Rakesh Chaurasia with Edgar Meyer, and his latin jazz-infused BEATrio with harpist Edmar Castañeda and drummer Antonio Sánchez,and performed as a folk duo with wife Abigail Washburn, and a jazz duo with legendary pianist Chick Corea. Most recently, Fleck produced and performed with Renée Fleming on their collaborative album, The Fiddle and the Drum, a celebration of Appalachian folk music. The project is touring in select markets throughout 2026, supported by none other than Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart band.
Michael Cleveland
Michael Cleveland, widely regarded as the defining bluegrass fiddler of his generation, began performing professionally after high school with Dale Ann Bradleyand Rhonda Vincent before forming his own band, Flamekeeper, in 2006—now aseven-time recipient of the IBMA’s Instrumental Group of the Year award. A twelve-time IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year and 2018 National Fiddlers Hall of Fameinductee, Cleveland has toured and recorded with legendary artists including BélaFleck, Tommy Emmanuel, Billy Strings, and Vince Gill. He is a four-time GRAMMY nominee, including a nomination this year for Best Bluegrass Album with JasonCarter for their collaborationCarter & Cleveland, which also won IBMA’s Album ofthe Year and Song of the Year (“Outrun the Rain”) at this year’s awards. Clevelandpreviously won a GRAMMY for Best Bluegrass Album in 2019 for Tall Fiddler, the same year his inspiring journey was chronicled in the documentary Flamekeeper:The Michael Cleveland Story. A recipient of the NEA National Heritage Fellowship, hecontinues to expand his artistic reach—his masterful fiddle playing can even beheard in the newest season of King of the Hill.
Dominick Leslie
Colorado native and 2x GRAMMY-winner Dominick Leslie has been around live musicall his life, having attended his first bluegrass festival when he was just five months old. Growing up, he was surrounded by music, listening to and jamming with his dad’s bluegrass band. At the age of four, Leslie acquired a ukulele tuned like the bottom four strings of a guitar, igniting a deep passion for music that still burns brightly. Leslie’s abilities progressed rapidly on guitar, fiddle and mandolin, but eventually the mandolin became his obsession and demanded his total focus, leading to a two year study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Leslie has been involved with many outstanding projects over the years including The Deadly Gentlemen, The Grant Gordy Quartet, Missy Raines and the New Hip, The Bee Eaters, Noam Pikelny & Friends, Hawktail, Sam Reider and the Human Hands, Phoebe Hunt and the Gatherers, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, The Sam Grisman Project and The Kyle Tuttle Band.
Jeff Partin
Multi-instrumentalist and celebrated dobro player, Jeff Partin has been performing professionally in the bluegrass world since he was a teen. Partin launched his career with his band Ella Jay, appearing on the Grand Ole Opry as a teenager before joining Volume Five as guitarist at age 19. He went on to tour with Mountain Heart on bass and dobro, and in 2019 was announced as the new dobro player for Rhonda Vincentand The Rage, who he continued to tour and record with for several years. Partinhas appeared on numerous bluegrass and country releases.
Mark Schatz
With his summer 2021 release of GRIT & POLISH Mark Schatz once again proves he’s true a ‘renaissance man’ of the acoustic music world. A two-time winner of the IBMA Bass Player of the Year Award, Schatz is best known for his contributions on some of the most iconic recordings in bluegrass by artists such as Tony Rice, BelaFleck, John Hartford, Claire Lynch, Tim O’Brien, Sara Jarosz, and Nickel Creek. But Schatz is also a master of the clawhammer banjo and is featured playing his own compositions on two solo projects on Rounder Records, BRAND NEW OLD TYME WAY and STEPPIN’ IN THE BOILER HOUSE. Schatz is always ready to cut loose with someSouthern Appalachian clogging and hambone, and his stagecraft was honed through a long association with the acclaimed Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, for whom he still serves as Musical Director. Schatz’s solo show: Mark Schatz — The Solo Concert, brings all of his skills to bear, performingon banjo, bass and guitar, presenting songs, stories, and tunes, tapping on a board, dancing, and recitingpoetry, offering a vaudevillian feast for the eyes and ears.
Jake Stargel
Jake Stargel, a 35-year-old native Georgian bluegrass flat-picking guitarist, was named Georgia Flat-picking Champion as a young teen. Seemingly born with a guitar in hand, he began performing in bands at 15, touring until his early 30s with acts like The Lovell Sisters (later Larkin Poe), Grammy-nominated The Greencards, Bearfoot, Mountain Heart, and Sierra Hull & Highway 111. A career highlight was sharing the stage with legend Tony Rice during his 2010-2012 stint with Mountain Heart, where Stargel replaced Clay Jones and impressed with his intensity and musicianship. Stargel earned the 2014 IBMA Momentum Award for Instrumentalist of the Year (guitar). Transitioning to Nashville, he focused on session work, recording and playing on various records for artists like Rhonda Vincent, John Mailander, The Wooks, and East Nash Grass, plus freelancing with bands such as Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Dailey and Vincent, and local acts. Recently, he featured on Bryan Sutton’s 2026 album From Roots to Branches, delivering a jaw-dropping rendition of “Crazy Creek."