Byrdstown, TN · bluegrass · newgrass

Sierra Hull

3 upcoming festivals ↓

A mandolin virtuoso since childhood, now writing songs that justify the technique — bluegrass pedigree stretched into something personal.

Sierra Hull was born in 1991 and grew up in Byrdstown, Tennessee, taking up the mandolin at eight and releasing a self-made record, Angel Mountain, at ten. Entering talent contests soon after, she was noticed by Rounder Records scout Ken Irwin at a bluegrass festival, and Alison Krauss began mentoring her when she was eleven, later performing alongside her and Dan Tyminski at the White House.

Rounder signed Hull at thirteen, and her debut vocal album, Secrets, produced with Krauss and Ron Block, reached number two on the Billboard bluegrass chart in 2008. She followed it with Daybreak in 2011, produced by bassist Barry Bales, while attending Pickett County High School and then studying at Berklee College of Music on a Presidential Scholarship, touring throughout.

Her 2016 album Weighted Mind, produced by Béla Fleck and built around a duo with bassist Ethan Jodziewicz, pushed her writing further from strict bluegrass form, drawing on jazz harmony and looser structures. It featured vocal contributions from Krauss, Abigail Washburn and Rhiannon Giddens and was praised by NPR as a coming-of-age record.

Hull has won ten International Bluegrass Music Association awards since 2010, including mandolin player of the year six times between 2016 and 2023, and received the Bluegrass Heritage Foundation's Bluegrass Star Award in 2013. She continues to work as a session and touring musician, including dates alongside guitarist Cory Wong.

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