Our band was formed after the 7th International Bluegrass and Acoustic Music Festival, Abaliget, Hungary in 2008. The aim was to play bluegrass and nothing but bluegrass. Religious songs and songs from other genres were out of scope at that time. The good thing about defining what a band will do when it starts is that it can be changed later. Today Poa Pratensis plays songs from the traditional and modern bluegrass eras, with some songs adapted to bluegrass from other genres.

As music is not something that can be done only in a certain way; we have our own style of bluegrass. The attitude of the six individuals is what defines our music today and is sure to evolve over the coming years. It is influenced by the life and culture in Hungary, pop and rock music, amongst others and of course it has its roots in bluegrass music. For us, bluegrass music is not a job that has to be done, but something that we have to find ourselves in.

Poa Pratensis comes from Hungary, a country that has nearly no bluegrass life at all. With only 4 or 5 bluegrass bands moving around within the country; even a 2-3 year old band seems to an established part of the scene. We keep ourselves busy running the annual International Bluegrass and Acoustic Music Festival in Abaliget and the monthly Acoustic Club in Budapest to do our part to make the music more popular.

It was very romantic how I got to start to play the banjo: my first love left me. I was so sad that there wasn’t any other way to get out of it then to buy a banjo and learn how to play it. So I started to look for one in the shops of Budapest (which wasn’t an easy thing then). After several months of desperately seeking I finally found a shop where the manager promised me to bring me a banjo from Slovakia. So one day I was standing there with my brand new banjo in my hands trying to find out how to play it. Fortunately I met someone who gave me a book and that’s how it started.

After some years I discovered that in Slovakia and the Czech Republic there are bluegrass workshops and festivals so I started to travel. On one festival I saw Jerry Douglas playing and he gave me the inspiration to learn to play the dobro. And when I finally bought a dobro and found out how to play my friend called me to join Poa Pratensis...

So it really feels like a dream come true for me!

 Well, I should write something here.

I was born in 1978 in the middle of autumn. I've done many things in the past (I have a hobbist's soul), collecting stamps, doing magic tricks, amateur drama playing, however music became my main hobby. For a living I do programming - it could have been vice versa, but to be honest according to my abillities I've choosen correctly.

How I made it to playing the mandolin? Even I don't remember that (actually I do, but it would be long to be written. If you're interested, come to a concert and ask it). I ran through playing chello, guitar, 5 string banjo and finally I arrived to the point when I don't want to look for a new instrument (yes, also this is not true, but I found any new instruments, I should have buy some and my wife would be angry for that. So the official answer is, that I don't look for new instruments).

Therefore I try to have fun on my 8 string mini instument. If I can reach that, it was worth it. If others can enjoy it too, than it was worth it even more, but you have to decide about that.

By the way, in my free time if I'm not playing music, I work with foosball tables: csocso.imtbt.hu

The were already traces of my commitment to music to be found in nursery school, but my fate was sealed irreversibly when at the age of 6 my mother decided: "my girl, go and learn music, because it's good for you", and she signed me in a music school.

After many years of dulcimer, music and singing lessons and singing in a choir I was dropped into the world of light music where I roamed in the direction of different musical styles.

Besides bluegrass I like blues, jazz and rock.

Music is life and love to me.
 

Hi, I'm Gergely, the youngest in the band. I was born in Budapest on 18th of July, 1990. I started practicing seriously when I was 15. I'd like to thank to my teachers: Tibor Szekeres, Péter Légrády and Miklós Szula. I met bluegrass music during the summer holiday of 2008 when I played with Tibor Kaszab at Polo Pub. I fell in love with bluegrass. At the end of summer the three ex-Szuterén members, Katrin, Péter, Matyi were looking for a gutarist for a new bluegrass band. They called me up and this was the beginning of Poa Pratensis.
 

In the beginning 2 friends of mine figured we should have started a band, so I had bought a bassguitar and started learning how to play it. The things in the beginning were pointing in the direction of country music, in later bands I played rock and rock&roll. Today it seems that I only have country as partially active anymore.
 
In the past few years I became snob in acoustic music, but in an orthodox way. I have played acoustic guitar for a few years in the acoustic band called Szuterén, and wanted to play acoustically in future band I created/joined.
 
When the end of Szuterén was getting clearer we started thinking with Matyi and Katrin on how we should have continued. We wanted to play bluegrass, but for that we needed a bass player or a guitar player and me playing on the instrument the other new member don't. It seems fortune was gracious to the audiance, since we found a guitar player. My bass playing is definatelly the less wrong scenario.
 
I started being curious about double bass around 2002 on a bluegrass forumon here in Hungary, but didn't do anything about it for a while. In 2006 on a bluegrass workshop I played a song in the jam until my finger bleed, but even this didn't stop me, so I bought my first double bass in 2008 and a the second one in a half year and I plan to live happily ever after.