“If you’re like most people at Cleveland Bluegrass Orchestra shows, you’re not there for the bluegrass. Not at the start, anyway,” writes Zachary Lewis in Friday’s (1/31) Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH). “You’re there because you love classical music, because all five of the group’s members are in the Cleveland Orchestra…. Stick around for a few minutes … and Bluegrass Orchestra co-founder Mark Dumm all but promises you’ll join the club. ‘At first,’ said Dumm, a violinist in the Cleveland Orchestra, ‘people just get a charge out of seeing us.’ … Most come around for the same reason Dumm and crew taught themselves other instruments and started playing bluegrass in the first place: It’s fun. Cleveland Orchestra bassist Henry Peyrebrune, who plays guitar in the group, said the bluegrass standards, classical arrangements, newgrass pieces and parody songs the Bluegrass Orchestra plays are all ‘music you can’t help but like and smile at.’ … Members of the Bluegrass Orchestra [put] on four or five shows a year…. Dumm, who formed the orchestra some 15 years ago … with principal harpist and expert fiddler Trina Struble, says, ‘It’s about letting off steam…. Playing the banjo is the opposite of being a classical violinist.’”
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