This summer Bryan MBA students will team up with Piedmont Folk Legacies to develop a business plan for the establishment of a National Banjo Museum in Eden, North Carolina.

Piedmont Folk Legacies is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and preserve the musical and cultural legacy of the Piedmont region. With an estimated price tag in the neighborhood of $20 million, the proposed museum would include exhibits, classrooms, recording studio, archival repository, and serve as a venue for performances of traditional American music.

The museum would also become the permanent site of the annual Charlie Poole Music Festival. A native North Carolinian, Charlie Poole is an icon in bluegrass music for his popularizing of the three-fingered picking style.

This year’s Charlie Poole Festival will be held June 13-15 and includes numerous concerts, competitions, and historical tours led by Poole biographer, Kinney Rorrer. A preview concert leading into the three day festival is being held on Sunday, June 8. For more information on Piedmont Folk Legacies and the Charlie Poole Festival, visit http://www.charlie-poole.com/.

With the founding of the full-time day program in 2004, the Bryan MBA has started to play a larger role in North Carolina’s economic development through its consulting projects. After completing the first year of the program, day MBA students are being sent out into the field to do consulting projects for organizations, both for-profit and not-for-profit.

-March 2008