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
