2025 Artist bios
Jake Blount, Judy Hyman & Jeff Claus
The BOTMC is delighted to present Jake Blount with his mentors Judy Hyman and Jeff Claus!
Judy Hyman and Jeff Claus met Jake Blount when he was a student at Hamilton College, who would occasionally come to Ithaca, NY (their home town) for events. He was playing banjo then and getting started on fiddle. A very dedicated and quick learner, it was apparent his playing was growing fast. For Jake’s senior thesis, a history and cultural study of the fiddle music scene in Ithaca, he interviewed Judy and Jeff, and they became friends. Later, Jake asked them to help him produce his first album after college, Spider Tales. Judy and Jeff say: “We were honored and loved the collaboration and depth of the experience of working with Jake. We’re good friends now, and we love and respect him for his stellar musicianship and his skill as an artist, scholar, and activist. We always look forward to talking, seeing, and playing with him and to watching him make his wonderful way in the world."
Jake Blount
Jake Blount, an award-winning and genre-defying Black and queer multi-instrumentalist and singer, fell in love with American traditional music through the banjo. He’s received many honors including the Steve Martin Banjo Prize and has performed at venues from Carnegie Hall to Library of Congress to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts.
Graduating with a Bachelors of Arts in Ethnomusicology from Hamilton College in 2017, Blount’s thesis was titled ‘Fiddles in the North Country: Uncovering the Ithaca Sound’ and was described as “an ethnography documenting the nature and development of Ithaca, NY’s regional style of string band music.” This thesis featured the music of Judy Hyman and Jeff Claus, who became two of Blount’s mentors.
Blount has given lectures and presentations on his research and the history of Black string band music at Yale University, Berklee College of Music, and the Smithsonian Institute. Currently, he is working towards a Ph.D in Musicology and Ethnomusicology at Brown University.
Blount is interested in the ways in which African Americans have “shaped and defined the amorphous categories of roots music and Americana” — something that is evident throughout his music. His first album Spider Tales was named one of the year’s best by NPR, highlighting Black and Indigenous histories and reviving songs that had been forgotten over decades of whitewashing. Blount views his music as connecting past histories, the present moment and our future; according to his website, he believes that “the more we learn about where we’ve been, the better equipped we are to face the future.”
judy hyman &
jeff claus
Judy Hyman and Jeff Claus, from Ithaca NY, are founding members of the hugely influential alt-folk string band, The Horse Flies. Jeff grew up in a small town in rural Illinois, where it's flat as a table, and the cornfields, cows, soybeans and silos dominate the endless horizon. His mother bought him his first guitar from the only music store in town, paying it off in small monthly installments. Judy grew up in New York City and New Jersey and was steeped early in a rich combination of classical violin,urban soul, R&B and jazz (her father is the renowned pianist Dick Hyman). She discovered Southern traditional American fiddle music in college and has been playing it ever since. The two met in college and have been happily married much longer than they've been apart.
Judy plays fiddle/violin, has recorded and toured with Natalie Merchant, and has received an Emmy award for the score she created for a documentary film about Thomas Jefferson. Jeff plays guitar and banjo ukulele, writes songs and sings, and has had songs and music used by Natalie Merchant, MTV's Rock the Vote, the band Fiery Furnaces, film director Oliver Stone (in his film Any Given Sunday), and others. Together they played in The Horse Flies and the indie rock band, Boy with a Fish, and now they spend a lot of their time composing and recording films cores for feature films and television documentaries (J2 Film Music). They also perform and teach workshops and classes at traditional music and other programs and festivals. As a duo, they play original and traditional fiddle tunes, songs, and waltzes.
bruce molsky
The BOTMC is pleased to welcome Bruce Molsky back to our festival! Grammy-nominated and described as “an absolute master” (No Depression), Molsky transports audiences to another time and place, with his authentic and personal interpretations of rarities from the Southern Appalachian songbook and other musical traditions from around the globe. Best known for his work on the fiddle, Bruce’s banjo, guitar and his distinctive, powerful vocals also resonate with listeners. His combination of technical virtuosity and relaxed conversational wit makes a concert hall feel like an intimate front porch gathering.
Bruce has collaborated with some of the world's most highly respected players from roots to rock, including Mark Knopfler, Anonymous 4, Tony Trischka and many more. His most recent collaboration is a duet with jazz/roots fiddler Darol Anger, “Lockdown Breakdown”. He is a special guest on legend rocker Mark Knopfler’s recent CD, “Tracker.” His 1865 Songs of Hope & Home with Anonymous 4, was on Billboard’s top 10 for weeks. Along with Andy Irvine & Donal Lunny, Bruce is a founding member of the supergroup Mozaik, with three recordings. You can see Bruce on the BBC TV “Transatlantic Sessions” with Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas, and on “David Holt’s State of Music” on PBS. He stays active touring and recording with longtime collaborators Darol Anger, Tony Trischka and Mountain Drifters’ Allison de Groot.
Bruce holds the title of “Visiting Scholar in the American Roots Music Program” at Berklee College of Music, where he is the go-to guy for the next generation of roots musicians.
Bruce says: “Performing and teaching traditional music are the biggest things in my world. For me, being a musician isn’t a standalone thing; it informs everything I do in my life. It’s always been about being creative and being a part of something much bigger than myself, a link in the musical chain and part of the community of people who play it and love it.”
OZARK HIGHBALLERS
Making their West Coast debut at the BOTMC, the Ozark Highballers are a four piece string band from Fayetteville, Arkansas, in western Arkansas’ Ozark mountains. Their music reflects the spirit and drive of the rural Ozark string bands of the 1920s and '30s. This old-fashioned ensemble, formed in 2014, features the dynamic melody duo of Roy Pilgrim on fiddle and Seth Shumate on harmonica, accompanied by the intricate string tickling of Clarke Buehling on five-string banjo, and the driving chords and bass runs of Aviva Steigmeyer on guitar. The Ozark Highballers have performed and taught at the Brooklyn Folk Festival, Stepehen Foster Old-time Week, Bluff Country Gathering, St. Louis Folk & Roots, CROMA, Ozark Folk Center, and have recently received the Artist 360 grant from the Mid-America Arts Alliance.
Sarah Kate Morgan
Born in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, Sarah Kate Morgan began playing dulcimer at age 7, on an instrument built by her grandfather. At 18, she placed 1st at the 2012 National Mountain Dulcimer Championships in Winfield, Kansas. Much like Bruce Molsky and the fiddle, having been a dedicated student of the mountain dulcimer’s complexities Morgan distills them into a beautifully polished package.
Well-known and widely respected as one of the leading experts of the mountain dulcimer, Sarah Kate is also a first-rate singer and songwriter. Her earthy and poetic lyrics embrace the highs and lows of southern Appalachian life while her voice does the same – moving between alto and soprano parts with ease. Her crystal-clear but rootsy vocal style combines the best of country, old time, bluegrass, and gospel influences who, like Morgan, foreground their cultural roots.
Sarah Kate has performed and/or recorded with artists like Tyler Childers, Amethyst Kiah and Erynn Marshall & Carl Jones, and is an accomplished scholar who graduated from Morehead State University with degrees in Traditional Music, Appalachian Studies, and Arts Administration.Currently based in Hindman, Kentucky, she practices, cultivates, teaches, and preserves Appalachian folk traditions in her role as a community music educator at the Eastern Kentucky nonprofit Appalshop. Whether calling square dances, playing the mountain dulcimer, or making music and creating art with Appalachian youth, Sarah Kate Morgan’s work centers on a lived belief that art and tradition are living, breathing tools that foster hope, build community, and create change.
Jake Blount, Judy Hyman
& Jeff Claus