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Music
Holly Riley is a versatile, style-crossing fiddler specializing in rootsy American genres from blues to bluegrass. Originally from Durham, North Carolina, she brings her decades of classical training and childhood roots in bluegrass bands towards a creative, improvisatory style that grooves just as well on a festival stage as it does in the grittiest bar gig or in a room full of fiddle students. Her “day job” while completing her Master’s and Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at Florida State was freelancing as one of Florida’s most prolific fiddle players, opening for everyone from America to Jon Pardi, playing 150+ gigs a year with 30+ bands across the Southeast, and occasionally writing her dissertation in the back of a tour van. Currently, Holly resides in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she teaches at Middle Tennessee State University, plays with an ever-changing lineup of rock, old-time, country, and bluegrass bands, and hangs out on her back porch playing banjo with her hound dog.
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Selected Discography
Georgia Honeys, Small Town Dreams 2021
Fiddle
Gavin Powell, Jacksonville Sunrise 2021
Fiddle, Vocals
Gavin Powell, Gavin Powell 2020
Fiddle
Rachel Hillman, Influences 2020
Fiddle
Augur Ridge, A Prophet’s Paradise 2019
Fiddle, Banjo
The Adventures of Annabelle Lyn, Chasing Horizons 2018
Fiddle, Banjo, Viola, Vocals
The Adventures of Annabelle Lyn, Maiden Voyage 2015
Fiddle, Viola, Vocals
Holly Riley, Holly Riley 2015
Fiddle, Banjo, Guitar, Vocals
Performance Schedule
13 April: The Rusty Nail, Hermitage TN
7 June: Crawfish Party, Murfreesboro TN