News Summary

• Soprano Renee Fleming and banjo player Bela Fleck have collaborated on an album.
• "The Fiddle and The Drum" celebrates Appalachian folk music.
• The album takes its title from a song first recorded by Joni Mitchell in 1969.
• Fleck: "I think music is about breaking down barriers, even what Renee and I are doing, you know, reaching out from different musical idioms.
• That's what the Kennedy Center is about.
• And it just felt like it was going in a direction that was hard to watch and hard to be a part of"