Jason Carter and Michael Cleveland @ Groton Hill Music Center (MA)

Between the two of them, fiddlers Jason Carter and Michael Cleveland have amassed an impressive 18 Fiddle Player of the Year Awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association – an easy majority of the fiddle trophies given out over the awards’ 34-year history. Plus, they’ve separately racked up 17 Grammy nominations and four wins. This pair of critically-acclaimed, generational talents in bluegrass and roots music have joined forces on stage, and with the 2025 release of their first duo album ever, Carter & Cleveland. Carter & Cleveland builds on the duo’s more than 30 years of friendship, a natural culmination of their frequent musical cross pollinations and collaborations across that time. They first met as teenagers – Cleveland was 13 and Carter was 19 – and they were already mutual admirers of the skill, musicality, reverence for tradition, and the unique fiddle fire they each heard in the other’s playing. Read more