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2025 String Band Summit
Middle Tennessee State University’s Center for Popular Music will host the 2025 String Band Summit this Thursday through Saturday (2/27-3/1)
The annual String Band Summit gathers musicians, teachers, students, and scholars engaged in string band music to explore traditions, histories, practices, instruments, and pedagogy, seeking to foster collaboration and understanding both within and among different musical cultures, individuals, and institutions.
Old-time, son jarocho, cajun, bluegrass, and blues are some of the more common genres of string band music played solely with string instruments. These instruments include banjo, fiddle, guitar, mandolin, requinto, bass and many more. You can expect to hear groups of these instruments performing traditional songs as well as original compositions at the summit.
This will be the fourth annual summit and the second year it is held in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The first two years it was hosted by the Eastern Tennessee State University’s Department of Appalachian Studies in Johnson City, Tennessee.
In 2023, the second year of the event, “crossing borders of genre and geography” was the theme of the summit and “contributions of African Americans to string band music” was the focus of performances, workshops, and presentations, highlighting the black experience in Appalachia.
2024 featured a global scope combining the Center for Popular Music and Center for Chinese Music and Culture, both distinguished music research centers at MTSU. This summit explored the rich string band practices of East Asian cultures and featured performers such as the Han Ensemble, Uncle Shuffelo, and the Bryan Sutton Trio.
The 2025 event will seek to feature performance, teaching, and scholarship related to the rich string band musics of West Africa, including their profound connections to Caribbean and North American musical practices.
Dr. Greg Reish, Summit organizer and director of the Center for Popular Music states, “This year we are showcasing a number of musicians who represent rich fiddling traditions in Mexico, along with experts on Afro-Caribbean banjo history, the importance of string band music to community building and organization, and closer to home, the deep string band traditions of the Cumberland Plateau.”
Friday night’s free concert at Hinton Hall on MTSU’s campus will include Sotavento, Trenton “Tater” Caruthers, Paul Anastasia & Tina Pilione, and Trio Canto a Mi Terra.
I am very much looking forward to the music by Trio Canto a Mi Terra as well as the cylinder recording demonstration in the Bragg Media and Entertainment building which is home to the Center for Popular Music. Both the Center for Popular Music and the Center for Chinese Music and Culture are well worth the visit; I have always enjoyed their exhibits and events.
One of the most important missions of the String Band Summit is to gather younger scholars, students, and artists with the senior scholars and professionals of the field and allow them to interact closely and in a meaningful way reaching across genre boundaries. There is education through workshops and lectures, collaboration through the “jams” and creative sessions, and mentoring just by having experts available and accessible over a three-day period in a casual setting.
Historic Downtown Murfreesboro has been host to other relevant festivals for many years such as the Uncle Dave Macon Days held annually since 1979 to celebrate the legacy of the old time banjo player and first Grand Ole Opry star. My first time at Uncle Dave Macon Days was an unforgettable jam session on the porch of a cabin in Cannonsburgh Village with no less than 20 musicians from all over the country. That may be the sort of experience you can expect to find on the MTSU campus at the end of this week during the String Band Summit.
The 2025 String Band Summit is co-organized by Dr. Greg Reish and Dr. Lee Bidgood. The keynote presentation by Dr. Dena Ross Jennings is made possible with support from MTSU’s Distinguished Lecture Fund.
The full schedule and registration can be found here.
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Classical guitarist, music educator, and contributor to Music City Review from Murfreesboro, TN
