Steve Martin's bluegrass award faces uncertain future

One morning last week in Boston, Victor Furtado woke up to a mailman’s knock. He was handed a little unmarked package. “I opened it up here in my apartment and kind of looked at it for a second, hoping somebody would wake me up. I was shocked, completely blown away.” Inside was word that the 19-year-old Virginia-bred musician had won the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, which comes with a $50,000 prize and a sculpture. “I feel so honored to be considered,” he said. But the award was somewhat bittersweet since Furtado — the youngest recipient of the prize given out every year since 2010 — may also be the last. The prize is in danger of disappearing. Martin said that he and the prize board members are overwhelmed by the sheer number of qualified musicians as bluegrass goes through a flowering. “It became very difficult to keep pace, even with all our great board members, of so many great players. In the ’60s, when I was first learning, great players were rare,” said Martin. “Now, if you listen to a bluegrass channel, you listen to the banjo player and go, ‘Who’s that?’ And you’ve never even heard of him and they’re playing incredibly sophisticated stuff I couldn’t even pretend to do.”...MORE