Julianne Petersen

When her father decided the family would become a bluegrass band, she chose the violin so she could be like her older sister Katie, the band’s fiddler, and from the family’s first shows in 2005 she played fiddle and danced. While still a child she also ran sound and lights for the band’s shows, at eight. When the band went full-time in 2015 she moved to the mandolin, and her mother, Karen, took up the bass. In the summer of 2017 she and her mother went to a bluegrass camp, and the band brought in the dobro player Emmett Franz to cover for them, the start of his time with the Petersens.

As the mandolin player she is heard on the band’s albums from Shenandoah (2017), which included “Fields of Gold,” through Homesick for a Country (2019) and Christmas with the Petersens (2020), and in its shows several times a week at the Little Opry Theatre in Branson. She also keeps a separate YouTube channel of travel vlogs about the band’s trips, which the band credits with bringing many viewers to its music. For her senior project at John Brown University she wrote an album, Beatrice, that combined literary technique with music.