Published in the Bennington Banner

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — For three days last weekend, Mass MoCA in North Adams welcomed roughly 4,000 music fans for a celebration of modern and traditional American acoustic music–an art form more commonly linked to Appalachian front porches and fiddle contests than modern art museums in New England.

The Freshgrass festival, which attracted a significantly larger crowd than in the festival’s first two years, boasted an impressive lineup of bluegrass and bluegrass-inspired acts, ranging from pioneering legacy groups like the Del McCoury Band to acoustic-minded indie acts like Brooklyn’s The Lone Bellow, who won over the crowd with their energetic performance on Saturday afternoon.

With two stages offering virtually uninterrupted music, a dedicated kids’ area, workshops for musicians and impromptu bluegrass jam sessions popping up everywhere (including inside the museum’s exhibit spaces), the whole …