Sam Bush

Mando Magnificat, billed as “a celebration of the enduring and brilliant versatility of the mandolin,” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. March 7 at Northwestern University’s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Evanston, Illinois.

The show will feature two performers who are no strangers to bluegrass — Sam Bush and Mike Marshall, as well as Germany’s Caterina Lichtenberg, Don Stiernberg of Chicago, the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra, and Mirko Schrader on guitar.

The concert will be broadcast on live streaming video through the concert hall’s Web site, allowing music fans outside of the area to experience the event in person through their personal computer.

Here are nuggets about the solo performers:

Bush, a founding member of The Newgrass Revival, has been performing on mandolin and fiddle since he was a youngster. He’s regarded as one of the fathers of newgrass music and continues to perform as a soloist, a studio musicians in Nashville, Tenn., and as a guest artist in concerts and recordings.

Stiernberg has been known around Chicago as a busy and versatile musician, turning up on recording sessions and at performances of all kinds to play mandolin, guitar, other string instruments, and sing. Recently he has established a focus on playing jazz on the mandolin.

Marshall is regarded by his peers as a master of mandolin, guitar and violin. He crosses many genre lines and has played jazz to classical to bluegrass to Latin styles. He was a member of the original David Grisman Quintent and has performed with Mark O’Connor and Bela Fleck.

Lichtenberg was born in Sofia (Bulgaria). She studied mandolin and guitar at the Cologne, Germany, Academy of Music. She has performed with numerous distinguished groups and orchestras and has recorded nine CDs. She is the first-prize winner of numerous national and international music competitions and was a scholarship holder at the Richard Wagner Foundation.

Tickets for Mando Magnificent are are $16 for the general public, $12 for senior citizens and Northwestern faculty and staff and $8 for students.

Details, including ticket information, are available at http://www.pickstaiger.com/index.php/concerts/details/112-mando-magnificat