Henhouse Prowlers have formed their own nonprofit, Bluegrass Ambassadors, which they use to organize and operate workshops and school programs in the U.S. and beyond.enhouse 

The Chicago-based bluegrass band Henhouse Prowlers has been to 28 countries around the world to perform, to educate, to share and to build bridges using music as the main material.

Ask him to name as many of those countries as he can, and bassist Jon Goldfine — who founded the band with banjoist Ben Wright in 2004 — doesn’t hesitate.

“I got you,” he said confidently before launching into the list:

Liberia, Mauritania, Niger, Uganda, Rwanda.

Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria and the Republic of Congo.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Russia.

Cambodia and the Czech Republic, plus many countries in Europe that tend to be more common destinations for touring bands. Oh, and Brunei.

“I think that was the last one we did before the pandemic,” Goldfine said.

That’s not all 28, but it gives you a good sense for the globe-trotting exploits of the Prowlers, who’ll play The Belfry in Sisters on Saturday, Feb. 25. The band started traveling to new areas of the world in 2013 as part of a cultural exchange program run by the U.S. Department of State called American Music Abroad.

“Anything they deem American music, they’ll send the band on a cultural diplomacy tour,” Goldfine said. “Bluegrass, country, rock, jazz, rap, blues — whatever it is, the idea is to take American culture and spread it around the world and make connections along the way.”

The Prowlers’ first state-sponsored tour took them to four impoverished countries in West Africa, where Goldfine and his band mates had a “mind-bending, perspective-shifting experience,” he said, as they performed for people and collaborated with local musicians.

“It really made an impact on us, realizing the power of music,” Goldfine said. “Even when you have almost nothing in common — you speak different languages, and you live very different lives — music can cut through all of that.”

In other words, the adage that music is a universal language is an adage for a reason.

“It is so true, and we immediately learned that on that first tour,” Goldfine said.

Since then, the Prowlers have formed their own nonprofit, Bluegrass Ambassadors, which they use to organize and operate workshops and school programs in the United States and beyond. And they have incorporated the music they learn abroad into their own work; in 2022, the band released “Bluegrass Ambassadors Sessions, Volume 1,” which features bluegrass-y versions of tunes by songwriters from Uganda, Cambodia, Germany and the Czech Republic, plus a traditional Uzbek song.

The result is a striking collision of traditional sounds that prove the distance between, say, American bluegrass and Qawwali music from Pakistan is shorter than you might think.

“Those experiences have not only affected us as people,” Goldfine said, “they affected our band and our music, too.”

What: Henhouse Prowlers, with Ky Burt

When: 7 p.m. Feb. 25

Where: The Belfry, 302 E. Main Ave., Sisters

Cost: $20

Contact: belfryevents.com