MORE
STRING FLINGS
We have an exceptional
selection of great string-fueled
performances this fall. For our
other exciting musical acts, visit
strazcenter.org.
SIMPLY THREE
Mon., Nov. 13
COLTER WALL
Fri., Nov. 17
LINDSEY STIRLING
Warmer in the Winter
Christmas Tour
Fri., Nov. 24
BEN HAGGARD
Fri., Dec. 15
THE GRAHAMS
Mon., Dec. 18
TICKETS: 813.229.STAR (7827) • STRAZCENTER.ORG 7
LINDSEY STIRLING
THE GRAHAMS
household name. Gibson’s iconic
mandolin design continues to symbolize
American folk music to this day.
The roads converged for the violin and
mandolin in the United States, where the
Italians had created a great mandolin
fever in the 1900s. Violins in the guise of
fi ddles partnered with mandolins, banjos,
guitars and upright basses to codify a
particular type of Americana music that
exploded in the 1930s once commercial
radio became a fact of life. Bill Monroe,
a mandolin virtuoso, created a new style
of fi nger picking based on the frenetic
fi ddle techniques of Uncle Pen Vandiver.
Monroe added “blue” notes and phrasing
from a bluesman mentor named Arnold
Schultz, named his band The Blue Grass
Boys, and invented bluegrass music.
From humble and possibly
apocryphal beginnings on a cave
wall in France to Ferguson Hall, the
convergence of the mandolin and
the fi ddle presents an intriguing
intertwining of the lives of two
fascinating instruments who found
a common home in bluegrass
bands – not a bad twist of fate for
our four-noted friends.