Program Set for November 1 at Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum 

NASHVILLE, Tenn., October 7, 2014 – The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum’s quarterly program series Nashville Cats: A Celebration of Music City Musicians returns Saturday, November 1, with fiddle virtuoso Stuart Duncan.  The 1:30 p.m. interview, held in the museum's Ford Theater, is included with museum admission and free to museum members. The program will be streamed live at www.countrymusichalloffame.org/streaming.

Hosted by Bill Lloyd, the program will include an in-depth, one-on-one interview illustrated with vintage recordings, photos and film clips from the museum’s Frist Library and Archive. Seating for the program is limited, and program passes are required for admittance. Immediately following, Duncan will sign limited edition, commemorative Hatch Show Print posters in the Museum Store. (Visit the museum’s website for complete admission and signing details.)

A multi-instrumentalist best known for his fiddling, Stuart Duncan has performed live and played on sessions for the likes of Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Alan Jackson, Alison Krauss, John Prine, Robert Plant, George Strait, Barbra Streisand and many, many others. He is also a longtime member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band.

Duncan was born April 14, 1964, in Quantico, Virginia, and raised in Southern California. He grew up in a military family and spent most of his childhood on Camp Pendleton. The music bug bit Duncan early in life—both of his parents were folk musicians, and he often went with his father when the older Duncan ran the sound system for a local folk club.

In the early 1970s, after hearing the Dillards and the Earl Scruggs Revue, Duncan knew he had found his calling. In 1974, he won a radio contest and the chance to perform on the Grand Ole Opry with the Pendleton Pickers—a group of his peers from the military base.

In 1985, Duncan moved to Nashville and joined the Nashville Bluegrass Band—playing fiddle, but also contributing vocals, mandolin, guitar and banjo. The band won Grammy awards in 1993 and 1995, for Best Bluegrass Album, for Waitin' for the Hard Times to Go and Unleashed, respectively.

Duncan began playing recording sessions and quickly earned a reputation for his stellar musicianship. In 1992, he released a self-titled album that featured Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, David Grier and Victor Wooten. In 2001, he played on the Grammy-winning O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.

In 2011, Duncan, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bassist Edgar Meyer, and mandolinist Chris Thile collaborated on the album The Goat Rodeo Sessions, which won the 2012 Grammy for Best Folk Album.

Duncan has won many awards for his musicianship—including multiple International Bluegrass Music Association awards and multiple Academy of Country Music instrumental awards. He lives in Nashville and continues to record.

Museum programs are made possible, in part, by the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission and under agreements with the State of Tennessee and National Endowment for the Arts. 

Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964. The museum’s mission is the preservation of the history of country and related vernacular music rooted in southern culture. With the same educational mission, the foundation also operates CMF Records, the museum’s Frist Library and Archive, CMF Press, Historic RCA Studio B and Hatch Show Print®.

More information about the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is available at countrymusichalloffame.org or by calling (615) 416-2001.