“It’s tempting to describe Bruce Molsky as a human iPod, but while that would convey his ability to draw, at random, from a repertoire as large as it is impressively diverse, it fails to appreciate how all that music managed to get into his memory without the luxury of downloads. Just how a city boy from the Bronx became so fluent in old-time Appalachian fiddling as to sound like a North Carolina native who’s never set foot beyond Surry County would be a story worth telling in itself. Molsky, though, has assimilated much more of American–and Scandinavian, and Balkan–folklore in the process of developing into the 21st century equivalent of those Southern States roadhouse players who could make people dance to any one instrument.” — Rob Adams, HeraldScotland, August, 2010
Guitar, fiddle, or banjo in hand, Bruce Molsky has been exploring traditional music from an astonishingly broad range of cultures over the past two decades – synthesizing them and refracting them through his own evolving sensibilities to the point where the sources of his inspiration transform themselves into a sound that is uniquely his. While most identified with traditional American old-time music, Molsky’s influences range from the Appalachian soul of Tommy Jarrell to Delta blues; from the haunting modal strains of Irish music and the rhythmically nimble music of Eastern Europe.
With great pleasure, The Shedd Institute welcomes Bruce Molsky back to the Jaqua Concert Hall for an evening of unforgetable traditional music.