The theme of this year's Blue Ridge Banjo Concert at Brevard Music Center in North Carolina -- the culminating event of Béla Fleck's Blue Ridge Banjo Camp -- was a tribute to the Beatles. So the concert's two sets featured lots of Beatles' songs played on banjo: solo, multiple banjos with a band, and for the finale: the 100-banjo camper orchestra. Under leadership of our arranger/conductor, Cassidy Beentjes, we backed up Béla, the faculty and guest front-liners on five fully orchestrated Beatles songs. A sixth number in the middle was played by Béla and the faculty only.
Video shot by the wife of a camper runs about 23 minutes, including the unrehearsed encore Béla threw at us. Having attended the inaugural 2018 concert, I knew what to do. Of course, so did everyone else. I'm in the fourth row, right center. Not visible. My section's leader was Adam Larrabee (bald player in front row to right of conductor). So most of what he plays that's not a solo is what we played.
Edited by - Old Hickory on 08/31/2026 15:40:05
That’s the lovely result of someone’s very hard work. I thought Strawberry Fields worked particularly well. It must’ve been fun to play these arrangements together.
Edited by - EEB on 09/01/2026 03:55:01
It was tremendous. And it was exciting to hear the pieces come together in daily rehearsals through Saturday afternoon (that last one on stage, tied in with practicing filing in from two sides to our correct places).
We received tab and video lessons for our individual parts ("individual" being one of five assigned sections, based on our level within the camp) and mp3s with and without click track of the full pieces to practice against about a week or so ahead of camp (some earlier, some pushing it). We were supposed to arrive at camp as familiar with our pieces as possible. Three were relatively easy. Strawberry Fields and A Day in the Life were the most challenging for me.
Strawberry Fields got easier in my last pre-camp practice when I went through the tab adding key words of the lyrics above measures where we came in, or above individual notes where we played contrapuntal lines or fills. That helped immeasurably. Made it so I didn't have to count measures or beats. Just hear the lyrics in my head.
Still, I made a few mistakes (very few) in the performance. No problem. We had over 20 in our section. There were more than enough right notes to cover anyone's occasional flubs.
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