Biography:

Bruce's solo recording Poor Man's Troubles (Rounder) won a 2001 "Indie" award for Best Traditional Folk Recording and has received great praise from the Washington Post, Washington Times, Bluegrass Unlimited and others. Lost Boy (Rounder) and Bruce Molsky & Big Hoedown (Rounder) have become staples for traditional music enthusiasts everywhere. A new Rounder CD is due out in early 2004. Bruce has been featured on Garrison Keillor's acclaimed A Prairie Home Companion radio show with Fiddlers 4, Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, and with Big Hoedown. He also appears as special guest artist on Darol Anger's "Diary of a Fiddler" (Compass Records). He has been featured in and occassionally writes for Sing Out!, Fiddler Magazine, Acoustic Guitar, Acoustic Musician, The Old Time Herald and Banjo Newsletter.

Bruce's new band Fiddlers 4 (Bruce, Darol Anger Michael Doucet and Rushad Eggleston) was a 2003 Grammy Nominee! Bruce also tours with Andy Irvine's Mozaik (with Donal Lunny) and extensively as a solo artist. He has performed at Lincoln Center in New York and The Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC. He toured the U.K. with internationally acclaimed fiddler Kevin Burke and others on the Fiddles on Fire tour, and was a featured performer at Fiddles of the World in Nova Scotia in 1999. The long list of great players with whom Bruce has worked includes luminaries like Martin Hayes, Mike Seeger, Stuart Duncan, Bill Frisell and Alasdair Fraser.

Renowned musicians Tommy Jarrell and Albert Hash were two of Bruce's mentors in the Blue Ridge Mountains where he first learned to play. Thanks in part to his time spent with these old masters, Bruce has earned numerous awards at fiddle and banjo contests around the south, including Galax, Virginia; Mount Airy, North Carolina; and the Appalachian String Band Festival in West Virginia.

Bruce is a highly sought-after fiddle and banjo teacher, and teaches his own intensive instrument workshop program all over the United States. He is an instructor at Swannanoa Gathering, Mark O'Connor Fiddle Camp, Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp, Alasdair Fraser's Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle Camp and others.

Fiddle Program
The fiddle program takes a very detailed approach to learning old time tunes, and we'll conquer three or four tunes over the course of each day. For each tune we'll go a phrase at a time, first melody, then bowing, and then piecing things together, all the while being mindful of the elements that make up the music, like rhythm, intonation, syncopation, volume dynamics, etc. All these things together make the "old time" sound, and that's what we'll be after.
     The tunes we'll learn will be chosen so that we can cover several different tunings, keys and visit a few different regions. The idea is to see the subtle differences in style from place to place, and learn to identify them.

Banjo Program
I teach the old-time clawhammer style, also called frailing, knockdown, framming, etc. As in the fiddle program we'll concentrate on individual phrases of each tune, and learn some techniques and ornamentation. Timing and accent are crucial to good banjo playing, and we'll look at the banjo as a solo instrument and also as it's used for accompaniment.
     Suggested experience level: Anyone who is comfortable with the instrument and who has at least a small repertoire of tunes should consider coming. I teach the skeleton of the tunes first, and then build with additional variations and ornamentation. That way there can be benefit for people at higher skill levels as well.