Legendary Fiddler Bruce Molsky at Sandglass, 5/15

Bruce Molsky at Sandglass Theater
Sunday, May 15, 7pm

Dubbed "the Rembrandt of the Appalachian fiddlers," Bruce Molsky stands today as the premier old-time fiddler in the world. That must feel odd for a former engineer from the Bronx, who didn't begin a music career until he was 40. But folded into those strange facts is the secret to his unique genius.

This Sunday, local music fans can get a glimpse of that genius when Molsky performs at 7 p.m., at Sandglass' intimate, acoustic music-friendly theater.

Molsky is a master fiddler, a fine singer, guitarist and banjo player, who performs solo and also frequently joins genre-busting supergroups, like the Grammy-nominated Fiddlers Four and Mozaik, with Hungarian Nikola Parov, and Celtic giant Donal Lunny. He was on Nickel Creek's farewell tour, and performs in a trio with Scottish fiddler Aly Bain and Sweden's Ale Moller.

"Playing in these kinds of groups is an important part of what I do," Molsky said. "Regionalism was one of the hallmarks of traditional music in the old days; now we're in the Information Age, and I don't think that's what folk music does anymore. But the more cultures I discover, the more I realize that folk music performs the same function for everybody; and therefore is the same thing everywhere -- just spoken with different accents."

Great fiddlers ask him to teach at their fiddle camps, including Alasdair Fraser, Jay Ungar and Mark O'Connor, who said Molsky has "a mystical awareness of how to bring out the new in something that is old."

"Young people realize this is a guy who's tapped into the real deep emotional wellsprings of this music," said Glaser, director of Berklee's American Roots Program. "He has a way of removing everything that's unnecessary; and young people are very hungry for something real. Bruce has that in spades."

Molsky was born in the Bronx in 1955 and fell in love with old-time music as a teenager. He moved to Virginia in the ‘70s, learning directly from old masters. Eventually, Molsky became a mechanical engineer, playing music in his spare time with his wife, Audrey. By the time he turned 40, both his parents had died. He decided to take a year to devote to music full-time. He's never looked back.

Tickets are $15 on the day of the performance, $12 in advance. Tickets are available through cattailmusic.com, or by calling 802-257-7391

 

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