The Belmont University Bluegrass Ensemble
The past academic year has been marked by top-shelf performance experiences for members of Belmont University Bluegrass Ensemble. On April 9, the group made their debut on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, an ultimate musician’s bucket list item. Ryan Joseph, director of the ensemble and coordinator of strings at the university, has played the Opry countless times in a professional capacity, but he admits that he still gets chills walking on that stage. He felt the same way, he said, filming from the side of the stage as the student group under his direction played the historic stage. “Walking back to the dressing room, the energy was like they’d all won the Super Bowl. They love each other; they worked together all year, and they got to experience playing the Grand Ole Opry to a packed house,” he said, describing the emotions that evening.
As regular performers at the popular Christmas at Belmont event and other university occasions in the recent academic year, they also played the Country Music Hall of Fame and several engagements at Nashville’s historic Station Inn, including a set at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Christmas event. Fiddler Kate Ward, a recent graduate, said one highlight was the ensemble’s trip to Los Angeles during Grammy Week to play for events as a part of Belmont’s outreach in recognition of university alumni nominated for awards. For many of the members, Ward said, this was their first time to see that part of the country.
Graduate Marissa Colter, who recently won the adult division of fiddle competition at Galax, said they particularly enjoyed performing at an event honoring Belmont alum Brandy Clark, who won the Grammy for her song “Dear Insecurity.” For the event, Colter said, the ensemble worked up a bluegrass version of Clark’s single “Pray to Jesus and Play the Lotto.”
The inception of the Belmont Bluegrass Ensemble can be traced to Daniel Landes, senior faculty member at Belmont who teaches classical piano. Landes was hired in 1983 at what was then Belmont College, when it was a smaller school. He was struck that while the school had a commercial music program with a couple of jazz groups, it didn’t have a bluegrass band or even a country band.
“I thought that was weird,” he noted. “Here we are, a music school in Nashville, and we don’t at least have a bluegrass band. A native of West Virginia, Landes said his father and uncles were string musicians, so he learned to play the banjo. He became a classical pianist, however, which led him to Belmont. Insisting to colleagues that the college needed a bluegrass band, he initially put together a small group of students and faculty, playing banjo himself, along with fiddler Tammy Rogers, still an undergraduate at the time; Danny Weeks, a talented mandolin player who went on to a career as a classical opera singer; and orchestra director Robert Gregg on bass. They had occasion to play background music for meetings of the board of trustees.
After a couple of well-received performances, around 1986, Landes made a proposal to the faculty to start a student bluegrass ensemble, which he agreed to direct. Original members of the student ensemble included Rogers, along with Dobro player Donna Hammit, West Virginia guitarist Mark Hamerick, Jeff Rogers (Tammy’s brother, then an undergraduate) on bass, and Michael McLain on banjo. The group quickly became a favorite student ensemble.
Landes served as director for three or four years before taking a sabbatical when Tammy Rogers, playing fiddle professionally after graduation, stepped in and directed the group. When Landes returned, he continued for a couple of years before admitting that the ensemble “had outgrown anything I could do with them.” He convinced McLain’s brother Raymond, banjo player on the Opry with Jim and Jesse, to take over the directorship. From that point on, the Belmont Bluegrass Ensemble has been under direction of musicians with strong careers of their own: Rogers, who played with the Dead Reckoners before becoming a founding member of the SteelDrivers, with whom she continues to tour and record; Michael McLain of the Banjocats; and current director Ryan Joseph, who has toured with Alan Jackson for the past 13 years on fiddle, mandolin and harmony vocals.
Daniel Eldridge, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter with Troubadour Blue, was a member of the Bluegrass Ensemble for three years between 2013 and 2017. He said having such an experienced level of directors was incredibly important. Rogers, director during his time on campus, sometimes had the ensemble open for the SteelDrivers at 3rd and Lindsley and arranged for them to play the Station Inn.
“My second full year in the group, Tammy won a Grammy,” Eldridge said. “At its core, in college young people are learning how to be adults, to be responsible, learning to be professionals in their career.” He admitted to “coming to rehearsal unprepared with a Grammy winner as my direct professor. It only happened twice, and after that, I never showed up unprepared again.”
Eldridge continued with the bluegrass ensemble throughout college, taking advice from Rogers and eventually forming Troubadour Blue with Brenna Wheeler, another colleague from the Bluegrass Ensemble, and her brother Eli. Rogers produced their first album, released in 2024, and frequently has the band open for the SteelDrivers.
A key word that surfaces whenever directors or ensemble members describe the experience in Belmont’s music program is “family.” Students who have benefited from the experiences in the Belmont Bluegrass Ensemble come back to campus as faculty or as mentors to the next classes of musicians. Eldridge finds pleasure in invitations to speak to students at campus songwriting events—after being rejected from the songwriting program “not once, but twice.” He acknowledges that he had a lot to learn, honing his skills co-writing with classmates, including Emily Landis, who had a number one hit song “The Good Ones” with Gabby Barrett. They were some of the earliest members of Bear House Writers Management, Belmont’s organization established to promote songwriting and publishing. Those rosters include a number of accomplished songwriters—Kassi Ashton, Anna Vaus and Devin Dawson.
Tammy Rogers King, a songwriter as well as vocalist and fiddler, said she encouraged songwriting within the ensemble. Under her direction, they presented a complete program of original student material. “It was a great platform for them creatively,” she said, “and that is the modern model for a bluegrass band—not unlike the SteelDrivers—to create your own catalog and have that component, not just rehashing Stanley Brothers or Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.” She noted that she thought it was important, however, for students to learn that catalog as well.
Current ensemble director Ryan Joseph believes, in addition to modeling professionalism, Belmont music professors aspire to give students the widest experience possible, so they have opportunities upon graduation. “I feel it is our job to mentor these students and to teach them skills, introduce them to people that are going to help them build a career in music.” He says that while some people doubt a music career is still a possibility, “I believe you can still make a living doing music.”
For Joseph, the inspiration to follow his heart as he sought a career in music was his father, whom he lost to a heart attack at 52, right after Ryan graduated with a degree in music education. He said his father hated his job and couldn’t wait to retire, telling his son, “Do something you love.” Nashville was the natural place to go to further that education, earning a master’s degree from Belmont, and to develop a network.
He tells his students, “It’s all about relationships; this even correlates with networking and building careers. To me, no matter what business you’re in, you’re in the people business.” He cited a friend who recommended making as many friends as possible: “Those friends are going to wind up hiring you, and at the end of the day, if they don’t, the worst thing that happens is you have another friend.” Joseph also values genuineness, adding, “I do think a majority of musicians in Nashville want to help my students.”
Last year, for example, he told Kerry Marx, music director for the Grand Ole Opry house band that he would love for his students to see what that band did on a regular basis. In response, the full Opry band came to Belmont and presented a master class for the entire music department.
Belmont’s School of Music tries to represent as many genres as possible to give students as many experience opportunities as possible–a rock guitar group, different jazz ensembles and Southbound, a country music ensemble. The ensemble experience is requisite for students earning a commercial music degree.
In addition to exposure to a variety of musical styles and genres, students earning a commercial music degree at Belmont also receive a grounding in classical music. Joseph says, “Developing a healthy technique on whatever instrument they are playing is a great passion of mine. To me, we’re doing the students a disservice if we’re not only teaching music in different genres but also the best techniques so they can have careers for forty or fifty years, and not have to quit because they have carpal tunnel.”
The audition-based Bluegrass Ensemble represents a year-long commitment, meeting twice a week for an hour and a half. According to Landes, the music faculty originally envisioned a band on the Flatt & Scruggs model, with all instrumentalists also holding down vocals; however, many vocal performance majors were eager to sing bluegrass as well, so the model has evolved. Vocalists audition for the ensemble at the end of Spring semester, and instrumentalists audition at the beginning of fall semester for a one-year appointment. The ensemble may include up to ten members, with two or three vocalists, sometimes more than one fiddler or guitarist, along with mandolin, banjo and bass.
“Students are coming in at higher levels in the genre already,” Joseph noted. For example, Ward has been playing fiddle for 13 years. Many, like their professors, have training and experience in fields other than bluegrass or country music. Colter considered majoring in classical music but was taking fiddle lessons from Deanie Richardson (Sister Sadie), who told her to consider the commercial music program at Belmont. “That was the best decision I ever made,” said Colter.
Belmont Bluegrass Ensemble graduates are making waves in the bluegrass and country music communities. Recent graduate Liz Dewey works in the IBMA office. John Gray and Bailey Warren have taken Downriver Collective from a folk trio to a full stringband. Warren also plays with Nashville-based Arcadian Wild. Other alums of the Bluegrass Ensemble have visible roles in the music industry. One graduate of the program, Kayley Green, played with Keith Urban at Bridgestone and recently signed with Sony Nashville. Kurt Ozan, who played dobro under Rogers’s direction, is now a steel and utility player for Luke Combs, and mandolin phenom Casey Campbell, from that same class, has played and recorded with many of the biggest names in bluegrass.
Ryan Joseph takes the education provided to the students in the program very seriously. He said, “I think through collaboration, we teach students to listen. Bluegrass is the greatest breeding ground for the element of listening. You have so many different roles in a particular tune. That’s why families that grow up in bluegrass are some of the best musicians in the world: They play different instruments, they play together every day, and they enjoy it.”
One of the themes of the program, says Joseph, is an aim for authenticity. He believes he was given authentic experiences as a student at Belmont. “Just as they gave them to me, I’m trying to give the next generation authentic experiences in the field with people who are actually doing it, who have the heart of a servant, and who want to pass on what they know—chops, skills, knowledge, networks—to the next generation.”
