The East Tennessee State University Bluegrass Pride Band will spend much of this week performing in Brussels, Belgium, at the invitation of the United States Military Delegation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The U.S. Military Representative to NATO is sponsoring an official open house on behalf of the United States for the greater community at NATO Headquarters.
The theme is “A Holiday in the South,” and more than 1,000 guests ranging from the ambassadors of NATO countries to military personnel are invited.
Although many European members of the NATO Alliance bring performing groups to events at headquarters, the United States seldom has the opportunity.
The ETSU Bluegrass Pride Band is one of several organizations across the South participating this time.
The band includes students Daniel Boner of Bridgeton, N.J., on guitar; J.P. Mathes of Elizabethton on banjo; Aaron Jackson of Quitman, Texas, on mandolin; bassist Darrin Beaton of St. Catherine’s, Ontario, Canada; and visiting bluegrass scholar Takeharu Kunimoto of Tokyo, Japan, on shamisen (traditional Japanese banjo), along with band director Raymond McLain, fiddle.
ETSU photographer Jim Sledge will accompany the group, which departed on Saturday, Dec. 5, and returns on Thursday, Dec. 11.
“This is a great opportunity for our students to share their music and the culture of the Appalachian region with our European friends and allies,” remarks Jack Tottle, director of ETSU’s Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Program.
“It is quite fitting that the band itself includes musicians from widely-separated parts of the United States, and from Canada and Japan, as well.
Each of them was drawn to ETSU to learn more about our region’s bluegrass music, and now they’re sharing what they’ve learned with folks on the other side of the ocean.”
In addition to performing at NATO Headquarters, the Bluegrass Pride Band is slated to conduct workshops at the Brussels American School, which provides elementary through high school education for the children of Department of Defense and State Department members living and working in Brussels.
The ETSU students will also have a rare educational opportunity of their own. Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Hunt, JAGC, of the U. S. Military Delegation in Brussels, has organized a “roundtable” event during which members of the band will be introduced to the history, organization and functions of NATO.
According to Hunt, “Band members will be afforded an opportunity to meet with State Department and military action officers who work daily within the Alliance on a myriad of pressing international issues including U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, NATO engagement in the International Stabilization Force Afghanistan, Balkans peacekeeping, and strategic engagement in Eastern Europe.”
“We are really looking forward to this tour,” says McLain, who also serves as assistant director of the Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Program, which is a part of ETSU’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Services.
“We’re very grateful to the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), which suggested us to NATO, and the numerous people at ETSU and at NATO Headquarters who have worked hard to make the necessary arrangements on very short notice.

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