Bruce Molsky
BIOGRAPHY
Performance Formats: solo or duo
Photo: Michael G. Stewart
Bruce Molsky
a string master's American roots journey with a world twist
" … brings a humble elegance and keen intellect to old-time music."
— Boston Globe
"Molsky plays tunes and sings lyrics that will move you in ways that might surprise you."
— Allmusic Guide
Grammy-nominated Bruce Molsky weaves fiddle, guitar, banjo, and song into his own beautifully unique style of American and world traditional music. His audiences are transported on a captivating musical voyage through time and place, starting with the archaic sounds of Appalachia and extending to Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia, and West Africa. Bruce Molsky is one of America's true folk virtuosos.
Described as "old-time music's answer to Ry Cooder," (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) Bruce's love affair with old-fashioned music of all kinds has grown stronger over the decades. His command of the instruments and his laid-back, intimate style draws in audiences to make them feel very much a part of his performances.
As a teacher, Bruce has introduced an entire generation of young artists to the richness of the traditional music genre. Says Rob Adams of the Scottish Herald, "Molsky's ever-increasing role as an ambassador for American music has allowed him to come home with more and more new angles and surprises to punctuate his already unique approach to music … [He] concedes that music for everyone is a form of escape, a unifying activity."
"We all play music for the same reason." Molsky says. "It's just the language that's different. When I'm playing the fiddle, nothing else exists. I think all musicians live for that moment when it all just comes up off the ground. You can't explain it, you can only feel it, but that moment is when you understand why you do it."
The same is true of Bruce's finger-style guitar and banjo playing. The listener instantly hears the broad palette he makes of his guitar, synthesizing so many influences and refining them as only he can. His composition, Brothers and Sisters, always leaves audiences spellbound, and Rove Riley Rove is as joyful and playful as banjo music gets. Famous for singing while harmonizing with the fiddle, Bruce has helped to add a whole new, electrifying vocabulary to folk music.
Bruce's singular artistry has been featured at The Smithsonian Institution's Annual Folklife Festival, Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, National Public Radio's All Things Considered and on BBC television's Transatlantic Sessions. He is on the Board of Advisors of the American Roots Music Program at Berklee College of Music and has been invited to deliver the prestigious Albert Gordon Lecture on American Studies at Glasgow University in Scotland.
A long-time recording artist on Compass and Rounder Records, Bruce is joined on his CDs by many musical greats. But the solo pieces are where his artistic light really shines. Mick Moloney tells the Irish Times, "His talent is positively frightening." His works with Grammy-nominated Fiddlers 4, Mozaik, and Aly Bain & Ale Möller have become staples for music lovers everywhere. As a music producer, his recording studio work includes producing CDs for artists including April Verch and songwriter Mark Simos.
Workshops, Master Classes, and Residency Activities
Bruce Molsky is widely recognized as a driving force behind the current wave of interest in old-time music, and he has inspired hundreds of musicians from beginners to professionals and music educators. He offers master classes in fiddle, banjo, and guitar, and group workshops for players at all levels.
His classes can focus on a specific instrument or a combination of instruments. The concentration is on the detail of playing and performance, ear training and technique, and it is always colored with the rich history of how early rural country music evolved in America. For schools, he can present both educational and bus-in performances in conjunction with evening concerts.
A regular instructor at Mark O'Connor Fiddle Camps, O'Connor says, "[Bruce] has tapped in to a mystical awareness of how to bring about the new in something that is old."
