Alex Hargreaves is an Oregon-raised fiddler who won the Grand National Championship at Weiser in 2007 and the Grand Master Fiddler Championship in Nashville in 2009. He then left the contest circuit for jazz, chamber music, and bluegrass. Since July 2022 he has held the fiddle chair in Billy Strings’s band, one of the biggest touring acts in acoustic music.
Why Hargreaves matters
Hargreaves is the clearest modern case of a contest champion who turned contest chops into a full improvising voice. He won both national titles as a teenager. He then studied jazz, joined a string quartet, and built a career on improvisation rather than set arrangements. Every night with Billy Strings he takes long solos in front of arena crowds, and thousands of young fiddlers now hear him as the model for what a bluegrass fiddler can do.
Life and career
Hargreaves grew up in Oregon in the West Coast fiddle contest and fiddle camp scene of the 2000s. His sister, Tatiana Hargreaves, came up in the same scene and won the Clifftop fiddle contest in 2009. At 13 he was awarded the Daniel Pearl violin. In 2006 he won the Junior division at the National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest in Weiser, Idaho. In 2007, at 15, he won the Grand National Championship there. In 2009 he won the Grand Master Fiddler Championship in Nashville.
He was already recording with older players. In 2009 he cut an album as the Big Trio with mandolinist Mike Marshall and bassist Paul Kowert for Adventure Music. His solo album Prelude came out in February 2010 on Adventure Music America, produced by Marshall, with Kowert, Grant Gordy, Béla Fleck, and Noam Pikelny. By then he had performed and recorded with Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings, Sarah Jarosz, David Grisman, and Marshall. In September 2010, at 18, he received the Jimmy Lyons Scholarship at Berklee College of Music, a full-tuition award named for the founder of the Monterey Jazz Festival.
In the 2010s he worked across styles. He played in Sarah Jarosz’s band and on her records. In January 2016 he joined the Turtle Island Quartet as one of its two violinists beside founder David Balakrishnan. He played on Sierra Hull’s 2020 album 25 Trips. In April 2021 he released Bluegrass and the Abstract Truth with guitarist Grant Gordy and others.
Billy Strings had used him as a frequent guest. On July 3, 2022, at Pier Six Pavilion in Baltimore, Strings and his bandmates knelt on stage and asked him to join for good. He said yes, and the band became a five-piece. In 2023 he also recorded the self-titled Mighty Poplar album for Free Dirt with Andrew Marlin, Noam Pikelny, Chris Eldridge, and Greg Garrison.
Playing style
When Strings asked Hargreaves to join the band, he named the reasons on stage: tone, timing, intonation, and double stops. That is a fair summary. Hargreaves plays in tune at any tempo, and his double stops sit inside the chord instead of on top of it.
The contest years gave him a clean bow arm and a huge tune list. The jazz years gave him the rest. His solos move through chord changes the way a horn player’s do, with long lines that land on chord tones and then leave them. He does not lean on a fixed set of licks. In the Strings band he often builds a solo over several minutes, starting close to the melody and moving further out. Reviewers of the Mighty Poplar record heard the other side of him, a restrained old-time sound on Grey Eagle and Lovin’ Babe.
Influences and legacy
Hargreaves came up under the West Coast contest and camp teachers of the 2000s, then studied and recorded with Mike Marshall and Darol Anger. Anger’s Republic of Strings and the Turtle Island Quartet, which Anger co-founded, both shaped his approach to improvising on a fiddle. He shared the Weiser and Grand Master stages with Tristan Clarridge, who won the Grand National title on either side of his 2007 win. His sister Tatiana Hargreaves took the old-time road while he took the improvising one. Peers from the same scene include Brittany Haas and Gabe Witcher. Through the Strings band he now reaches more listeners per night than any bluegrass fiddler of his generation.
Signature tunes and songs
Sports Grey Eagle A Good Woman’s Love Lovin’ Babe Meet Me at the Creek.
Essential recordings
Prelude (Adventure Music America, 2010) Mike Marshall, Alex Hargreaves and Paul Kowert as Big Trio (Adventure Music, 2009) 25 Trips, Sierra Hull (2020) Bluegrass and the Abstract Truth (2021) Mighty Poplar (Free Dirt, 2023)
Awards and honors
Daniel Pearl violin award, at age 13 National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest, Junior division (2006) National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest, Grand National Champion (2007) Grand Master Fiddler Championship (2009) Jimmy Lyons Scholarship, Berklee College of Music (2010)
Watch and listen
Hargreaves takes a long solo with Billy Strings at the Renewal festival in Colorado in 2024. Watch how he starts near the melody and works outward.
Another solo from a 2023 show in St. Augustine, Florida. Listen for the double stops that outline each chord change.
What to learn from Hargreaves
Learn Grey Eagle from the Mighty Poplar record. It is a standard contest tune, and his version shows how a champion plays it inside a band instead of on a contest stage: fewer variations, more groove. The technique to steal is his double stops. Pick one chord progression and play through it using only two-note stops that spell each chord. Do it slow until every stop is in tune. That habit, more than speed, is what got him the job with Billy Strings.
Sources
National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest champions, University of Idaho Library Past winners, Grand Master Fiddler Championship Alex Hargreaves gets Berklee scholarship, Bluegrass Today Billy Strings Makes Alex Hargreaves Official Band Member, JamBase Alex Hargreaves, Prelude, Discogs Strings Sessions Presents: Turtle Island String Quartet, Strings Magazine Bluegrass Supergroup Mighty Poplar Sprints Out of the Gate, Strings Magazine Watch: Garrison, Gordy, Hargreaves, Walsh, Sports, The Bluegrass Situation About, Tatiana Hargreaves Billy Strings, Wikipedia Sierra Hull, Wikipedia Mike Marshall (musician), Wikipedia
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more contest champions. His sister Tatiana Hargreaves won Clifftop in 2009. Tristan Clarridge and Tashina Clarridge ruled Weiser in the same years. Darol Anger showed him the improvising path, and Mark O’Connor walked it a generation earlier.