Bio

Kristin combines award-winning songwriting and percussive dance in performances that have been heralded “inventive” by the New Yorker and “haunting” by NPR’s Folk Alley. Since coming of age with two of America’s most beloved traditional music ensembles (Uncle Earl and the clogging company Footworks) as well as the “folk noir” songwriting trio Sometymes Why (with Aoife O’Donovan and Ruth Ungar), Kristin has turned her deep knowledge of timeless roots music into a knack for creating original songs with a similar kind of staying power.

Following the release of her second solo album Gondolier, Kristin toured solo in support of Black Prairie, Dawn Landes, Aoife O’Donovan, Mipso, and Noam Pikelny. This spring, she’ll share works-in-progress from new trio recording made with guitarist Chris Eldridge and producer, percussionist and banjo player Shane Leonard. The northeast tour will feature Leonard as well as long-time collaborator and New York-based singer, guitarist and BBC Folk Award winner Jefferson Hamer.

Now based in Nashville, Kristin has become a respected voice in songwriter circles, with music recently heard on Showtime’s The Affair and ABC’s Nashville and songs co-written with or covered by Elephant Revival, Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge, Caitlin Canty, Michaela Anne, Joy Kills Sorrow, The Sweetback Sisters, Laura Cortese, and Peter Stampfel. Her song “Crayola Doesn’t Make a Color for Your Eyes” hit #1 on the kids’ music radio charts and has been covered by dozens of artists ranging from Tyne Daly to high school marching bands. Kristin has been a featured performer on NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion; her dancing feet have been heard in the film Cedar Rapids, and NPR’s Mountain Stage chose her 2015 performance as one of year’s ten best.

A Portland, Oregon native, Kristin made her way to Tennessee via Montreal, Cape Breton Island, the Canadian Arctic, Maryland, and Brooklyn. As a founding Artistic Director of the popular all-ages Miles of Music Camp, she facilitates life-long learning and community, enjoying nothing more than teaching a pile of square dance beginners how to do a Grand Chain.