Fiddlers! 29
October 9 @ 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Join the fun for the 29th anniversary of FIDDLERS!
When fall is in the air and summer green is changing to red and gold, enjoy the rhythms, rhymes and traditional down home strains of three award-winning fiddlin’ bands. This year’s lineup of performers exemplify young professional musicians who champion the subtle historic traditions of Celtic, bluegrass and country and sometimes add a contemporary twist to their styles: Corner House Band, originating in Boston, Nashville-based George Jackson and Rachel Baiman, and Julian Pinelli, rooted in southern Appalachian music, performing with Ethan Setiawan and Dan Klingsberg. The evening comes to a close with a rousing jam session including all the day’s performers and any audience members who want to join in.
Corner House Band, originally hailing from Boston, MA, takes its name from the place where the four young band members found musical family in one another – their shared home in Brighton, while students at Berklee College of Music. Emerging from varied backgrounds, the quartet’s unique strength is their desire to learn from one another, not only musical skill and style, but about life experience; such that every challenge met by one band member becomes part of the group’s shared musical and personal DNA. Mutually inspired, learning from one another, and open to any and all ideas, the group is a beautiful representation of their generation; not only tolerating, but embracing diversity in every aspect of their music making. On their debut full length album, How Beautiful It’s Been, the band reveals the sublime result of that growth mindset, with a singular sound that incorporates old time, Scottish, progressive bluegrass and folk. Corner House Band comprises songwriter and guitarist Ethan Hawkins, Scottish fiddle player Louise Bichan, bluegrass mandolinist Ethan Setiawan, and cellist Casey Murray.
George Jackson is a Nashville-based fiddle player who tours as a band leader and fiddler for hire, working with artists including Jake Blount, Tall Poppy String Band, Front Country, Peter Rowan, Missy Raines, Charm City Junction and many more. Born in New Zealand, George grew up in a musical family and first heard bluegrass music around the age of 14. Immediately falling in love with the style, he started trying to work out how to play it from recordings and from the few mentors he could find in New Zealand. Moving to Australia as a 16-year-old, he won the Australian National Bluegrass Championship on fiddle three times and toured the country with his bluegrass band, The Company, playing many major folk festivals on the Australian circuit. As a resident of Nashville and the US from 2016, George released an album of original old-time style fiddle tunes, Time and Place in 2019 to acclaim. He was awarded the 2019 Mike Auldridge composition award by the DC bluegrass union for his tune Chapel Hill Deer Stalk and sparked a viral fiddle tune with his composition Dorrigo, with hundreds of musicians learning the tune and posting videos of themselves playing it online, which become known as the “#dorrigochallenge.” Each track on Time and Place is written by George and named for its time and place of composition, tracing his journey from New Zealand to his new life in the United States, exploring ideas of authenticity and identity through fiddle music. In his free time, George brews his own beer and cooks Cajun food. He loves Swedish fiddle music and —fun fact— he was a competitive Highland dancer until the age of 21.
Rachel Baiman, originally from Chicago, moved to Nashville at eighteen and has spent the last decade working as a musician in a wide variety of roles, from session musician (Molly Tuttle, Kelsey Waldon, Caroline Spence), to live sidewoman (Kacey Musgraves, Amy Ray), to bandmate and producer. Fiddle music was her first love, and she is known in the bluegrass and old time world for her work with progressive acoustic duo 10 String Symphony along with fiddle player Christian Sedelmyer. Her first solo album Shame, was produced by Andrew Marlin of Watchhouse, and established her role as part of a new generation of political songwriters. Since 2017, Baiman has toured her solo project internationally with appearances at the Kilkenny Roots Festival in Ireland, the Mullum Music Festival in Australia, and the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage in Washington, DC.
Julian Pinelli, sprung from the music of southern Appalachia, is a free-spirited violinist who spins luscious tone with modern ease. Named the 2021 Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association, Julian also won the 2016 Fresh Grass Fiddle Award and the 2017 RockyGrass fiddle competition. A member of Peter Rowan’s Bluegrass Band, Julian currently resides in Nashville where he works extensively as a sideman for artists including Love Canon, Ben Sollee, Kyle Tuttle, and many others. Playing with Julian at FIDDLERS! 29 are Sam Leslie, on guitar, Ethan Setiawan on mandolin, and Dan Klingsberg on bass.
