Starr Hill Presents: Béla Fleck—My Bluegrass Heart
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featuring Michael Cleveland, Dominick Leslie, Jeff Partin, Mark Schatz, & Jake Stargel
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 Heart is the third chapter of a trilogy 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.
Béla Fleck
Just in case you aren’t familiar with Béla Fleck, there are many who say he’s the premiere banjo player in the world. Others claim that Fleck has virtually reinvented the image and the sound of the banjo through a remarkable performing and recording 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.” 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.
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 Heart is the third chapter of a trilogy 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.
Béla Fleck
Just in case you aren’t familiar with Béla Fleck, there are many who say he’s the premiere banjo player in the world. Others claim that Fleck has virtually reinvented the image and the sound of the banjo through a remarkable performing and recording 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.” 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.
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Where is it happening?
215 E Main St, Charlottesville, VA, United States, Virginia 22902
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Host or PublisherThe Paramount Theater of Charlottesville
