John Bullard plays five-string banjo, which you might expect from a southerner. But there’s a gothic twist: he plays classical music. If you think about it, it’s actually the perfect southern art—a gentleman playing classical music on a banjo. One minute he’s bush-hogging a field on his John Deere tractor, the next he’s on his porch playing a Bach partita. John Bullard has gained international attention for his work in developing and transcribing classical repertoire. His recordings have been featured in several feature films. John is joined by Markus Compton on piano. They will perform Robert Schumann’s Three Romances (O. 94) and other works from John’s latest CD recording.
John Bullard, accompanied by Markus Compton on piano will be at the Historic Palace Theatre on
You’ve never heard banjo played quite like this before. Don’t miss out on John Bullard and his 5 string banjo classical twist;
The Historic Palace Theatre * 305 Mason Ave. Cape Charles, VA 23310 * 757-331-4327
As a classical music lover, and fellow banjo player, I became aware of John Bullard’s banjo playing some time ago, and it is played fairly regularly on the classical music station up this way to the north of Cape Charles.
With qualities evocative of harpsichord and lute, the banjo makes a natural place for itself in particular within the works of Bach and other composers of the Baroque—and Bullard has established a strong repertoire in the music of that period.
“The exacting beauty of classical music to me is like poetry,” says Bullard.
“You can spend years with a single work, and yet it only continues to draw you in more deeply to interpret and express its rich complexities, the nuances of phrasing and dynamics.”
“And this music also allows me to bring out qualities and possibilities in the banjo that have not been recognized.”
As for classical music on the banjo, it is nothing new.
We are a pretty sophisticated crowd, afterall, bib overalls and hay sticking out of our ears notwithstanding.
Afterall, a long-time favorite for banjo players is J.S. Bach’s Bourree, which was also a favorite of the band Jethro Tull.
And John Bullard is not limited to classical music – to the contrary, as could be expected of a five-string banjo player of his caliber, he can play Foggy Mountain Breakdown and other bluegrass banjo standards, with the best of them.
According to his bio, his banjo story starts in the early 70s in rural Virginia when he heard Dueling Banjos on his father’s pick-up truck radio.
As a young person back then, he had already been doing what he could with a guitar at the time, joining his father on romantic standards like Shine On Harvest Moon, but as soon as he heard Dueling Banjos, he announced that he wanted a banjo.
Throughout high school, Bullard took banjo lessons and absorbed all he could from listening over and over to every Earl Scruggs recording he could lay his hands on.
Then, at Hampden-Sydney, a small men’s liberal arts college in Hampden Sydney, Virginia, Bullard informed the school’s less than open-minded music theory professor that he played the banjo.
The teacher rolled his eyes and responded, “Oh no, that just won’t do.”
Eventually, more enlightened minds held sway.
In 2005, John Bullard became the first classical banjoist to earn from Virginia Commonwealth University a Bachelor of Music degree in Performance.
Graduating magna cum laude, John was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, the prestigious national music honor society.
Music from Bullard’s recordings has been included in several feature films such as the DreamWorks animated film The Rise of the Guardians and the award winning The Edge of Heaven.
In the early 1990s, he was on the faculty of the world-renowned Tennessee Banjo Institute along with such luminaries as Pete Seeger, Béla Fleck, and Tony Trischka.
So it should be quite a show!