Nashville Mandolin Ensemble – Christmas and more

Some days ago I wrote about Carol of the Bells, and that the first version of this tune that I liked was the version played by the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble on the CD of Patty Loveless Bluegrass & White Snow.

And some days ago I found new videos of the NME with some Christmas tunes.

Nashville Mandolin Ensemble “O, Holy Night”

Nashville Mandolin Ensemble “Christmas in County Kerry”


The Nashville Mandolin Ensemble plays very good arrangements of classical and modern tunes for plucked instruments – mandolins, mandolas, mandocellos and guitars. It does not sound like a typical European mandolin ensemble, and it does not sound like Bluegrass – I would say it sounds really like American mandolin ensemble music, like the groups that existed at the beginning of the 20th century all over the USA. More recent groups with a similar sound are the Mando Boys with Peter Ostroushko who made a CD years ago, or the Modern Mandolin Quartet.

Founded in 1991 by Butch Baldassari of the Blair School of Music, NME performs period arrangements for mandolin orchestra along with animated transcriptions of classical, jazz and pop music, along with new music from contemporary composers.

And on the myspace page I found the following description:

With its scintillating contemporary qualities, the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble has been hailed for revitalizing and reshaping a type of ensemble music that enjoyed nationwide popularity at the turn of the 20th century.

I have collected the following playlist with videos of the

Playlist – Nashville Mandolin Ensemble

Playlist Nashville Mandoline Ensemble 2

Additional Information

NME on myspace – Bach, Beatles, Bluegrass – with some examples from their CDs: http://www.myspace.com/nashvillemandolinensemble

Homepage about the NME with informations: http://www.soundartrecordings.com/nme.shtml


Recommendation (Amazon partnerlink)

Bach >> Beatles >> Bluegrass – Nashville Mandolin Ensemble

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