Over the past half-century, Béla Fleck has exploded the parameters of the banjo, taking his staggering musicality to inspired blends of bluegrass, fusion, folk, jazz, classical, global music and more. In the process he’s won 19 Grammy Awards and rightfully earned a reputation as one of our most brilliant instrumentalists.

If you’re already familiar with Fleck — the genre-blurring virtuoso has done more to expand the possibilities of the banjo than any other player in the instrument’s history. To wit: last year, he released a collaboration with his new all-star trio with harpist Edmar Castañeda and drummer Antonio Sánchez is nothing less, featuring instrumentation that might safely be called uncommon. The year prior, it was his inspired reimagining of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Fleck has also been the banjo’s most thoughtful advocate and ambassador, and his acclaimed 2008 documentary Throw Down Your Heart and its accompanying soundtrack celebrated the instrument’s unsung African roots. Still, many fans would argue that Fleck’s greatest achievement is the Flecktones, another band of brilliant improvising musicians with an unusual format. (To start, their percussionist, Roy “Future Man” Wooten, plays an original invention called the Drumitar.) 

Fleck has the virtuosic, jazz-to-classical ingenuity of an iconic instrumentalist and composer with bluegrass roots. For over 30 years, he has led Béla Fleck and The Flecktones, the groundbreaking quartet inspired by jazz, funk, bluegrass and beyond. From writing three banjo concertos for full symphony orchestra to collaborations with Dave Matthews, Chick Corea, Zakir Hussain and beyond, many tout that Béla Fleck is the world’s premier banjo player. As Jon Pareles wrote for The New York Times, “That’s a lot of territory for five strings.”