The Picker

When Chris Pandolfini ’01 fell in love with the banjo, he was a high school senior obsessed with the genre-bending instrumental group Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. “I came to the banjo in this re-contextualized role that was very new and different,” says Pandolfi, who majored in environmental studies. “And then I came to find out that bluegrass was where the banjo really lived.” Pandolfi’s five-man stringband, The Infamous Stringdusters, formed in 2006 and quickly earned critical praise and credibility with bluegrass fans, notorious for their fierce loyalty to the traditional music. Six albums in, the Stringdusters now bill themselves as “The Future of Bluegrass,” experimenting with form and earning crossover appeal, as well as more critical raves, including a 2011 Grammy nomination.

The Stringdusters’ most recent album, Ladies & Gentlemen, released earlier this year, features a series of female vocalists such as Joan Osborne, Lee Ann Womack and Mary Chapin Carpenter and allowed Pandolfi to go beyond the banjo’s traditional role. This summer the group began recording a seventh album and collaborating with singer-songwriter Ryan Adams, with whom they played Telluride Bluegrass and Newport Folk festivals and Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

Pandolfi, now working out of the Stringdusters’ fan base of Denver, has also launched a solo banjo and keyboard project. TRAD+ both harkens back to the experimental, fusion banjo music that inspired him as a teenager and weaves in influences from ambient electronic music. “I’ve definitely put in my time and had instruction from some great and notable bluegrass players, but I’ve also come full-circle,” Pandolfi says. “This is sort of my flight of fancy into a new musical world.”

Kaitlin Bell Barnett ’05