Alison Brown is scheduled to perform at Chautauqua Institution. Submitted photo

When it comes to the banjo, Alison Brown transcends the instrument.

While the banjo is most associated with bluegrass and roots music, Brown is progressive, and taking the banjo in new directions.

Brown got interested in the banjo at a young age.

“I just loved the sound of the instrument,” she said in a telephone interview.

Brown is scheduled to perform at The Chautauqua Amphitheater at Chautauqua Institution, Monday at 8:15 p.m. supporting her recent release “On Banjo.”

On her new release, she collaborates with Steve Martin, who is a famous comedian, but also a very gifted banjo player as well, mandolinist Sierra Hall, clarinetist Anat Cohen, the Kronos Quartet, classical guitarist Sharon Isbin, and fiddle player Stuart Duncan.

“I like to take the banjo in a lot of different directions – jazz, latin and classical (music),” she said.

Brown grew up in southern California listening to bluegrass music. She graduated from Harvard University and received a Master of Business from UCLA, and pursued a career investment banking. She missed playing the bluegrass, so when Alison Krauss approached Brown to play banjo, she gave up working on Wall Street to pursue music. She toured with Alison Krauss and Union Station, and Michelle Shocked before forming her own group, The Alison Brown Quartet, in 1993, according to her website alisonbrown.com

Brown has recorded 12 solo albums, received a GRAMMY and multiple GRAMMY- nominations. She has also received the USA Artists Fellowship in Music and a Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association. Brown has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR’s All Things Considered and in the pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times among many other publications, the website stated.

“One of the things I love about banjo is it’s tuned to an open chord. So I like to tell people at first chord’s free, just to get into the instrument and play a few simple things. It’s easy, because once you get it in tune, you strum a chord,” Brown noted.

For inspiration, Brown loves listening to jazz guitarist Joe Pass.

“That’s one of my favorite things. … I love his playing so much,” Brown said.

With her band, she tries to create a sonic tapestry. She said the audience members can look forward to a show that will open their eyes to the banjo and where you can take it musically.

“We do some vocal stuff during the show, but it’s predominantly instrumental. It’s very song form-oriented and very melody rich.

Recently, Brown has developed an online platform for the banjo. She said really did a deep dive for the course beginning with how to hold the banjo to enhanced features. She said the course is about 160 video lessons and is available at artistworks.com.

And what’s unique about the website, she said, is that patrons can exchange videos by uploading their own video performances and have them critiqued by the teachers. Even though it is not in real time, essentially it is a one-on-one lesson with the teacher she noted.

In addition to teaching and performing, Brown is also the co-founder of the roots music label Compass Records Group which oversees a catalog of nearly 1,000 releases across multiple label imprints, including Red House Records, Green Linnet and Mulligan Records. Brown currently serves on the Board of the Nashville Chapter of the Recording Academy, on the adjunct faculty of Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music and as co-chair of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize, her website noted.

For information about tickets please visit chq.org.