Nashville, TN (Top40 Charts/ Hadley Music Group) Bluegrass singer songwriter Donna Ulisse & her band The Poor Mountain Boys will be taking their first international trip as they depart for Russia on Sunday, July 10, 2011. While there they will be performing at four bluegrass festivals in a country where bluegrass is seldom heard, exposing Russian audiences to this American music art form. They will be playing the Second Annual Russian Bluegrass Festival at the Kremlin in the city of Vologda on July 12th and in the folk village of Semenkovo on July 13th. They will then travel to the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Region to perform in The Literature Quarters and Historic Square for two festival dates on the 15th and 16th for the first introduction of bluegrass to locals ever in this region. Vologda is considered the cultural capital of Russia while Yekaterinburg is considered an industrial center of the country. The invitation to perform was sent from the U.S. Embassy in Russia while actual organizers of the event are the U.S. Consulates General in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. The festivals will feature several Russian bluegrass bands. However, Ulisse and her band will be the only American act performing. Ulisse came onto the bluegrass scene in 2007 with the release of her self-penned CD When I Look Back that was enthusiastically received by bluegrass radio and fans alike. Her second release, Walk This Mountain Down was a Top 30 album on the Americana chart and also featured the song "I Lied" which was #1 on the SiriusXM Bluegrass Junction chart five times in 2009. After a bluegrass gospel album in 2009, she returned to the studio for the fourth time with producer-guitarist Keith Sewell with the result being her fourth album An Easy Climb which was released in June of 2011 and has already surfaced on the Bluegrass Music Profiles chart and is currently #12 on the Euro-Americana chart which reflects airplay in several European countries. Donna Ulisse is a signed staff writer at Uncle Hadley Music and balances her time between writing songs, recording her own projects and touring with her band The Poor Mountain Boys. She is fast becoming a favorite on the festival circuit and there are plans for a European tour in the works for 2012.
| 
