Abigail Washburn is not only one of the country’s premier clawhammer banjo players and folk-music composers, having won a 2016 Grammy for her duo album with her husband, Béla Fleck, and, until COVID-19 hit, having negotiated a busy international touring schedule. She is also an avid cross-cultural communicator and listener who believes in the spiritual power of music to bridge divides.

Long an admirer of Chinese arts and culture, she has in recent years collaborated and performed with classically trained composer and Chinese guzheng virtuoso Wu Fei. Together they delight audiences in the States and in China with the often remarkably similar sounds of Appalachian and Chinese folk music and the magic that occurs when both women find inventive ways to meld both instruments and traditions. In April of 2020, they released their first album, simply titled “Wu Fei & Abigail Washburn,” on the Smithsonian Folkways label.

Abigail spoke with Rob Kramer from her home in Nashville after a long day of intense distance learning. Eager to continually improve her command of Mandarin Chinese, she is currently enrolled in an advanced language program at Middlebury College, where she first started learning the language as a teenager during summer intensives.

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