Howdy Folks!
Noam, here, with some news that will surely change your life.
Greetings from Raleigh, NC where tonight I’ll be attending the 2014 IBMA Awards show. You can imagine my surprise when I first heard the news that I received two nominations this year. Firstly, I had no idea that an International Bridal Manufacturers Association even existed, and secondly, I never dreamt that my reclaimed banjo pick foot jewelry would ever be anything more than a hobby!
Management informed me soon after that it was rather the International Bluegrass Music Association awards, and the nominations weren’t for footwear but for Album of the Year and Banjo Player of the Year. Congrats to fellow Punch Brother, Gabe Witcher, who produced the NP Plays Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe album, and to the album band: Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, Ronnie McCoury and Mike Bub. In fact, the exact album band will be assembling for the first time outside of the studio for a live performance tonight on the awards show, which you can stream online at ibma.org starting at 7:30pm ET. My pre-taped concession speech from the lobby of the Raleigh Red Roof will be posted immediately after at Noam.net, if it hasn’t leaked already.
On Saturday in Raleigh, Stuart Duncan and I will fire up the fiddle & banjo machine to kick off our October Tour. It’s been an absolute thrill getting to play duo shows with Stu-Bob this year, and the response has been not only positive, but unanimous: The Noam Pikelny & Stuart Duncan show is the next best thing to a Stuart Duncan solo show. I couldn’t agree more. This Sunday we’ll be in Asheville, NC and then we’ll continue up the Mid-Atlantic over the course of a couple weeks. I’m especially excited for the debut of the Stuart duo at my old stomping grounds, the Rockwood Music Hall, for a two night run in NYC.
I’m so thrilled to be finally be joining up again with a character from my distant past, the Original American Songbird, Aoife O’Donovan! You may recognize Aoife from high profile projects such as Noam Pikelny & Friends and or the indie darlings, The Goat Rodeo Sessions. We’ll be touring a new project this November with Barry Bales on bass and Shad Cobb on fiddle. More on this tour soon, but tickets for all the shows are now on sale.
Thanks for reading, hope you can make some, if not all of the upcoming shows!
Noam