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Special Guests Saturday, July 3, 2004 Sam Bush made his recording debut, Poor Richards Almanac, when he was 17, after holding the title as the National Junior Fiddle Champion for three consecutive years. When he was 19 he founded New Grass Revival (NGR), a band that combined a variety of music styles like rock, pop, reggae, jazz, country, and bluegrass for 18 years. NGR released ten albums and disbanded on New Year's Eve in 1989 by opening for the Grateful Dead. After NGR, Bush led Emmylou Harris' Grammy-winning Nash Ramblers for five years. Bush, who plays mandolin, fiddle, and guitar, has recorded on albums by Lyle Lovett, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Left Over Salmon and many others, and he has released four solo records. Bush's latest release is Ice Caps: Peaks of Telluride (Sugar Hill). Kansas City native Calvin Trillin, who has published solidly reported pieces in The New Yorker for 35 years, has been called "perhaps the finest reporter in America." Trillin, who now lives in New York, left Kansas City after high school, went to Yale, spent time in the Army, and then became a writer for Time magazine, later becoming a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. After 15 years of producing 3,000-word pieces every 3 weeks from somewhere in the U.S.—pieces about the murder of a farmer's wife in Iowa, or the definitive history of a Louisiana restaurant—he spent seven years as a columnist for The Nation, writing what USA Today called "simply the funniest regular column in journalism." The column was syndicated to newspapers for 9 years, and since 1990, Calvin has written a piece of comic verse weekly for The Nation. His many published books include collections of his columns, comic novels, short story collections, and antic books on eating. His latest book is called Obliviously On He Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme, published last week. Nathan Farrington began his bass studies in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, at age ten. Nathan is currently a member of the Haddonfield Symphony, the Curtis Institute Symphony, and also appears as an associate with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Canton Symphony Orchestra, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In January of both 2003 and 2004 he was a finalist in the Philadelphia Orchestra's Albert M. Greenfield Competition. During the summer of 2003, he attended the Tanglewood Music Center as a fellow, and in November 2003, Nathan was chosen to perform the music of Aaron Copeland at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. In May of 2004, he appeared with violinist Katie Hyun as a finalist on A Prairie Home Companion's "Talent Between Twelve and Twenty" contest. Inga Swearingen began her career as a singer/songwriter, accompanying herself in alternate tunings on the guitar, and later made a transition to singing jazz. In July 2003, she was recognized at Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival during the 2003 Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Competition, receiving the Prize of the Public from the audience and First Place from the judges. Her debut CD is called Learning How To Fly (2003). Currently, Inga is earning a masters degree in choral conducting at Florida State University. | | | |
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