This week, world renown bluegrass and old-time music virtuosos and educators Tony Trischka & Bruce Molsky recorded live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park’s annual Arkansas Old-time Fiddle & Banjo Championships. Also, performances from the 2025 contest champions, fiddler Gwyneth Davis of Petit Jean Mountain, AR and banjoist Erik Brashers of Eureka Springs, AR.

Each year, the Ozark Folk Center State Park hosts the Arkansas Old-time Fiddle & Banjo Championships. Competitors ranging in age from eight to eighty come from all over to test their skills and possibly be crowned a champion. World class musicians are brought in judge these contests and also perform on the Folk Center’s evening concert. At the 2025 contest we were honored to have as our judges and performers, Tony Trischka & Bruce Molsky.

Tony Trischka was born in Syracuse, NY and raised in a home filled with music. There were broadway scores and a sweeping range of classical music, from Stravinsky to Beethoven. The wide-open American vistas of Aaron Copland had an especially potent spiritual and visceral impact on him, as did the folk music his left-leaning father held dear. The Almanac Singers, the solo work of its founding members Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and Lead Belly’s children’s lp were in constant rotation. Trischka fell in love with the banjo by way of the Kingston Trio’s 1959 recording of “M.T.A.,” and was able to experience the New York-centered folk revival by trekking to the Newport Folk Festival in the early to mid-’60s. He moved to the city in the early ’70s and hit the ground running, settling in among a peer group of extraordinary musicians who saw American roots music as a thriving, living language that could be expanded and combined with other influences and sensibilities.

- https://www.tonytrischka.com/bio

Grammy-nominated, described as “an absolute master” (No Depression), Bruce 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's take on tradition has landed him in collaborations with some of the world's most highly respected players from roots to rock.

https://brucemolsky.com/bio

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, OHR producer Jeff Glover offers a 1985 archival recording of a notable contest fiddler from the past, Alison Krauss, performing the traditional tune “Gardenia Waltz,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.

In his segment “Back in the Hills,” writer, professor and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins discusses the etymology of the name Ozark.