#koitiata

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Koitiata - Januray 2016

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Get to Know AMS: BB Bowness

This month, the SMF Education Department will be introducing you to the 16 young musicians participating in this year's Acoustic Music Seminar. Each one will be visiting the Savannah Music Festival for an incredible week of playing, creating, and writing with world-renowned artists like Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, and Bruce Molsky to name a few. 

  Check back tomorrow to meet a new participant!

  Get to know: BB Bowness

  Age: 22

  Hometown: Koitiata, New Zealand

  A banjo prodigy from New Zealand? You better believe it. Since she completed her BMus in Banjo at the New Zealand School of Music, the first person to ever do so, BB has been making her mark on Boston, Massachusetts while immersing herself in the city's vibrant acoustic music scene. 

For the last ten years, BB has been inside the banjo "vortex" as she calls it. "It won't be letting go anytime soon," she says.  "[The banjo] has such unique qualities that continue to both baffle and inspire me." Soon after beginning her banjo studies with tutor Mark Warren, she received the Frank Winter Memorial Award at the Auckland Folk Festival to travel to the USA and study with world renowned banjo players Tony Trischka, Alan Munde and Bill Evans.

  Next, she won the Uncle Dave Macon banjo competition in Murfreesboro, Tennessee at just 15 years old and came runner up in the Rockygrass bluegrass banjo contest in Colorado. In 2007, she was invited to join Colorado bluegrass band, Long Road Home, for their tour of summer festivals in the USA. BB has performed throughout New Zealand and Australia with the bluegrass band, Twisted Oak, and recorded her own debut album Village Green with some of New Zealand's best acoustic artists. 

  BB is excited to soak up more information from the acoustic community when she arrives at AMS.

  "I'm incredibly excited to have the opportunity to attend AMS and get to study with my musical heroes alongside some of the most amazing young musicians around," she says. 

  Watch this video of BB playing "21" with Cy Winstanley and Vanessa McGowan. 

    Make sure to see this year's participants in action with Julian Lage and Mike Marshall at the Lucas Theatre for the Arts on April 6th at 5PM. For more information visit the Savannah Music Festival's website.