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Bruce Molsky

Recording Artist · Active 1989–present · The Bronx, New York City · brucemolsky.com · Also a musician
Old-Time (Traditional) Old-Time (Contemporary)

Bruce Molsky is a New York-born fiddler, banjo player, guitarist, and singer recognized as one of the foremost stewards of unaccompanied Appalachian old-time music — a largely self-taught Bronx native who built an international career and a long teaching legacy out of the Round Peak tradition.

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  • Born in 1955 in New York City and raised in the Bronx; took up guitar as a boy and fiddle as an engineering student at Cornell in the early 1970s.
  • Made pilgrimages to North Carolina source fiddler Tommy Jarrell beginning in 1976, immersing himself in Round Peak and Southern old-time repertoire; his sources also include Hobart Smith and Henry Reed.
  • Worked as an engineer for years before turning to music full-time in the mid-1990s.
  • A pioneer of the unaccompanied fiddle-and-voice style; solo albums include Lost Boy (Rounder, 1996), Poor Man's Troubles (Rounder, 2000), Contented Must Be (Smithsonian Folkways, 2004), and Soon Be Time (Compass, 2006).
  • A founding member of Andy Irvine and Dónal Lunny's Mozaik and of Fiddlers 4 with Darol Anger, Michael Doucet, and Rushad Eggleston; collaborators range from Tony Trischka and Mark Knopfler (Tracker, 2015) to Aoife Ní Bhriain.
  • Played on Béla Fleck's My Bluegrass Heart (2021), which won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album.
  • A founding faculty member of the American Roots Music Program at Berklee College of Music and a fixture at workshops such as the Swannanoa Gathering; named one of NPR's 50 Great Voices in 2010.
  • Widely cited as the most important conduit between old-time fiddle tradition and contemporary acoustic music, influencing Brittany Haas, Rayna Gellert, Tatiana Hargreaves, and many younger players. Lives in Beacon, New York.

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