Saturday, September 19, 2026, 7:30 PM

Street and Davis Performance Hall, Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre

This performance will last approximately two hours and 30 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.*

Category A $75 | Category B $50 | Category C $30
$10 students with ID and youth 18 and under

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"…Béla Fleck is one of the most important musicians of all time. It seems like there’s no limit to what he can achieve on the banjo."

— Billy Strings, Grammy-winning American singer, songwriter, and virtuoso guitarist

Featuring Michael Cleveland, fiddle; Dominick Leslie, mandolin; Jeff Partin, dobro; Mark Schatz, bass; and Jake Stargel, guitar

Few artists have reshaped an instrument the way Béla Fleck has transformed the banjo. Over the last four decades, 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, which is where he returns with My Bluegrass Heart, the name of both his latest project and his 2022 Grammy winner for Best Bluegrass Album. 

The project brings together legendary musicians and a new generation of virtuosic players in a joyful, deeply collaborative celebration of tradition and innovation. At its core, My Bluegrass Heart is about connection — between past and present, friends and collaborators, and the communal experience of making music together.

The album My Bluegrass Heart was 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 multigenerational gamut of the best of bluegrass players, all sporting a myriad of Grammy 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.

About Béla Fleck

Just in case you aren’t familiar with Béla Fleck, there are many who say he’s the premier 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.

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 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.”

Collaborators include Abigail Washburn, the Brooklyn Rider String Quartet, Chris Thile, the Blind Boys of Alabama, McCoy Tyner, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, and Rakesh Chaurasia (their latest album, As We Speak, won two Grammys in 2024). Fleck’s album, Rhapsody in Blue, was released in 2024 on the centennial of the work’s premiere in New York City, and he debuted it at Carnegie Hall with an orchestra in May. 

His Grammy-winning project, My Bluegrass Heart, is named in honor of his friend and hero Chick Corea (My Spanish Heart).  Fleck and Corea have toured as a duo and released three acclaimed albums, including their latest and final duo project, Remembrance (2024), which earned a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.

Fleck previously performed at the center in 2018 and 2024.

Photo by Madison Thorn

* Run times listed here are based on information provided at this time and are subject to change.