The 33rd annual International Bluegrass Music Association Festival (IBMA) was held September 25-29 in downtown Raleigh with vendors and stages along Fayetteville Street and performances at the Red Hat Amphitheater.
Artists such as Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush and the Gibson Brothers performed at the Red Hat Amphitheater, with tickets selling for as much as $160 a seat.
Not all the performances cost money: seven stages along Fayetteville Street hosted over 100 bands, with performances that were free to the public.
Two of the stages were set aside for youth bands: the Youth Stage, located in front of the Convention Center, and the Junior Appalachian Musicians stage on Martin Street.
Youth band Cane Mill Road performed on both stages Friday and Saturday. The band’s first album reached number nine on Billboard’s Bluegrass Album chart.
The mandolin player of Cane Mill Road, Liam Purcell, is only 16, while the rest of the band ranges from 19 to 21. “It’s kinda weird,” Purcell said, “working with these guys who can drink and are out of high school.”
Another youth band featured at IBMA was the Carolina PineCones.The band has five members: Jessica Lang on guitar, Sam Stage on the fiddle, Anthony DeCesaris on banjo, Aiden Buehler on mandolin and their mentor, Jef Walter, who plays bass.
Stage and Lang are both 16 and in high school. “It’s crazy,” Stage said. “I’m a sophomore, and along with the all the homework, I’m practicing and going to events. I can’t imagine what junior year will be like.”
DeCesaris currently attends East Chapel Hill High School.
IBMA also featured a number of food trucks and local artists, offering foods from dumplings to fried fish, and art in the form of photographs and t-shirts.
The day before the festival started, the IBMA bluegrass awards were hosted by Hot Rize, who, in 1990, was the first band to receive the Entertainer of the Year award.
Balsam Ridge won this year’s coveted Entertainer of the Year award. Among the other winners, the Special Consensus won Album of the Year with Rivers & Roads, Ned Luberecki won Banjo Player of the Year and Sierra Hull won Mandolin Player of the Year.
