Kristin Scott Benson is the four-time International Bluegrass Music Association's Banjo Player of the Year (www.ibma.com). She has been a member of the Grammy-nominated bluegrass band, The Grascals (www.grascals.com), since 2008.

Her new record, Stringworks, is on Mountain Home Records and features six instrumentals and six vocal songs, all showcasing her banjo playing. The album includes Wayne Benson (mandolin), John Bryan (vocals), Terry Eldredge (vocals), Mickey Harris (vocals), Adam Haynes (fiddle), Chris Jones (vocals), Cody Kilby (guitar), Shawn Lane (vocals), Claire Lynch (vocals), Tim Surrett (bass), Jim VanCleve (fiddle), and Grant Williams (vocals).

Kristin grew up in South Carolina, surrounded by a musical family. She started playing mandolin and stepped on stage for the first time at the age of five. After receiving a much-anticipated banjo for Christmas when she was thirteen, Kristin became enthralled with the instrument and spent her teen years studying the playing of all the banjo greats from Earl Scruggs to Bela Fleck. After high school, she attended Nashville’s esteemed Belmont University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BBA in Marketing and a minor in Music Business.

Kristin has attained a national identity as one of the top bluegrass banjo players, exhibiting impeccable taste, timing, and tone. With an attentive ear to back-up, she is known and respected as a true team player:

“There was one grass ceiling no woman could cut through—until Kristin Scott Benson came along, that is. Almost two years ago, she joined The Grascals. Not to front the band, not to sing, not to be eye candy, but instead to drive the group with her fivestring banjo. Until then, no woman had ever been hired to play one of the most defining of the bluegrass instruments in an Alist, festival-headlining, all-male band….It’s a high profile gig, as Kristin takes the banjo where no woman has taken it before.” Larry Nager – “Kristin Scott Benson – Cutting the Grass Ceiling” Bluegrass Unlimited: Oct, 2010

In addition to Stringworks, Kristin has recorded two prior banjo albums, Straight Paths and Second Season. Both received stellar reviews, as well as an IBMA nomination for Instrumental of the Year for the self-penned, Don’t Tread on Me, on Second Season.

After 13 years in Nashville, Kristin relocated back near her original home, in the Carolinas, where she lives with her husband and son. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.