The Bee Eaters bring together elements of bluegrass, old time music, Celtic, jazz, and pop to create a beautiful blend of tradition and innovation. “Boston’s fast-evolving progressive acoustic music scene has produced another strange and wondrous new species,” says the Boston Globe. “The trio combines chamber music’s finely calibrated arrangements with bluegrass’s playful virtuosity and pop music’s melodic resourcefulness.” Tristan Claridge is a five-time Grand National Fiddle Champion and a pioneering cellist who has toured with Crooked Still and Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings. His sister Tashina Claridge was the 2005 Grand National Fiddle Champion and has toured with Mark O’Connor and Tony Trischka. Simon Chrisman is a hammered dulcimer wizard who has performed with Darol Anger and Mike Marshall. Darol has called these three creative young talents “the instrumental cream of the brand new string nation.”
 
Tristan and Tashina grew up in a teepee on the side of a mountain in a remote part of Northern California. Simon grew up near Seattle on Bainbridge Island. They kept crossing paths at music festivals, began playing together, and formed the group in 2008. The Lonesome Road Review calls the sound of their latest album, Oddfellows Road, “quite beautiful” and “completely natural.” With Tashina’s delicate fiddle and Tristan’s grounding cello wrapped around Simon’s ethereal dulcimer, the band weaves beautiful melodies and pulsing rhythms into a gorgeous musical tapestry. In the words of Tony Trishka, it’s “bodaciously brilliant!”

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Photo by Sarah Anderson