Casey Driessen’s Red Shoe Stringjam (Fri)

Some of the most memorable festival moments—for artists and audience alike—are the ones we understand may never happen again. Casey Driessen’s Red Shoe Stringjam [festival edition] sets the stage for once-in-a-lifetime musical experiences by putting together one-night-only bands, inviting us to embrace the moment. Curated and led by Casey, this set is a joyous jam collective that has never performed together before and exists only in our singular time and place. This rare opportunity welcomes the audience to glimpse the private backstage experience, full of spontaneous excitement and energy created when diverse musicians find common ground and propel each other to new places.

The idea is born from Casey’s legendary long-running Nashville gatherings of the same name where top-tier musicians come together for a night of hanging and picking. Artist the likes of Chris Stapleton, Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, Kacey Musgraves, Brothers Osborne, Futureman, Dierks Bentley, Darrell Scott, Tim O’Brien, Alison Brown, Abigail Washburn, Darol Anger, Michael Cleveland, Jeff Coffin, Brittany Haas and many more have shared cocktails and music. The Red Shoe Stringjam celebrates a spirit of friendship, artistic camaraderie, relaxed spontaneity, and above all, good vibes.

Driessen has never taken the standard path in his music career. Described by Zac Brown as “a mad scientist with a five-string fiddle,” the GRAMMY-nominated fiddle player loves to experiment, collaborate, teach, travel, and expand boundaries.

In the fall of 2024, Driessen is launching the Blue Ridge Fiddle Camp at the Brevard Music Center in Brevard, NC. For fiddlers & violinists of all styles, this immersive four-day experience focuses on the crafting of one’s musical voice through the exploration of style, rhythm, and technology under the guidance of a world-class faculty. Embracing both tradition and innovation, the camp invites all adventurous and open-minded players of the instrument to come together and shape the future of bowed string playing.

Casey’s newest album Otherlands:ONE (available on streaming platforms) is the audio companion to his project OTHERLANDS: A Global Music Exploration—a travelogue of on-location recordings, short films, photos, and essays documenting musical collaborations around the globe. Countries visited so far are Spain, Ireland, Scotland, India, Japan, Finland, Italy, Slovakia, and Czechia.

Before setting off on his Otherlands journeys, Driessen spent four years as Program Director of the Contemporary Performance (Production Concentration) master’s degree at Berklee College of Music’s first international campus in Valencia, Spain. Over the past 15 years, Driessen has released four solo records and toured as a one-man live looping show called The Singularity; collaborated with Béla Fleck, Bassekou Kouyate, Abigail Washburn, Raghu Dixit, Tony Trischka, Jerry Douglas, Steve Earle and others; produced and engineered records; teched, managed stages, tours, and merch; and travelled the world playing music in 22 countries on four continents and counting…all while wearing red shoes.