Aynsley Porchak is a bluegrass fiddler from Woodstock, Ontario. She won the Grand Master Fiddler Championship in Nashville in 2015 and the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship in 2017. No other fiddler has won both. She played with Carolina Blue, co-founded the Tennessee Bluegrass Band, and taught fiddle at East Tennessee State University.
Why Porchak matters
Contest fiddlers and bluegrass band fiddlers often live in separate worlds. Porchak crossed between them. She won the two biggest fiddle titles in North America, then took a job in a hard-driving traditional bluegrass band and built her sound on Kenny Baker. She has also judged the Grand Master championship three times. For a jammer, she is proof that contest chops and band playing can share one bow arm.
Life and career
Porchak grew up in Woodstock, Ontario. She moved to the United States to study in the Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music Studies program at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. There she studied fiddle with program director Dan Boner and played in the ETSU Bluegrass Pride Band, the program’s top student group.
In 2015 she won the Grand Master Fiddler Championship in Nashville, beating a field of 16 that included Trustin Baker in second. She judged the same contest the next year. In August 2017 she won the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship, the invitational contest that crowns Canada’s national champion. She had placed fourth there in 2016. The 2017 field had 29 fiddlers.
Porchak finished her bachelor’s degree at ETSU on December 16, 2017. That same weekend she started as fiddler with Carolina Blue, a traditional bluegrass band from Brevard, North Carolina. She earned a second bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in Appalachian Studies at ETSU. In 2018 the IBMA gave her the Momentum Award for Instrumentalist of the Year. She recorded two albums with Carolina Blue, I Hear Bluegrass Calling Me (2018) and Take Me Back (2020).
In July 2019 she posted a video a day of Kenny Baker tunes on social media under the name Aynsley Plays Kenny. In January 2021 ETSU added her to its bluegrass faculty as an adjunct professor teaching private fiddle lessons. Carolina Blue broke up in 2021, and Porchak co-founded the Tennessee Bluegrass Band that June with banjo player Lincoln Hensley and mandolin player Tim Laughlin. The band signed with Billy Blue Records. In June 2024 she joined the Darren Nicholson Band. In May 2025 she took a job as social media specialist for Crossroads Music, the parent company of Mountain Home Music.
Playing style
Porchak calls her approach vintage bluegrass fiddling. She studies the first generation of players, above all Kenny Baker, and she has said she studied his records since childhood. That means long, smooth bow strokes, clean double stops, and melodies that sit close to the tune instead of running away from it.
Her contest background gives her a second gear. Contests reward tone, control, and variation, and she brings that polish into bluegrass breaks without turning them into contest pieces. Dan Boner at ETSU called her his twin-fiddle partner and praised her technical control. Listen to her twin-fiddle work with Boner for the tight harmony that comes from that pairing.
Influences and legacy
Her deepest influence is Kenny Baker, Bill Monroe’s longest-serving fiddler. Dan Boner shaped her at ETSU, and she has played Dale Potter’s Fiddle Patch with him, a nod to Dale Potter and the Nashville double-stop tradition. On the contest side she shares a title with Rudy Meeks, the Ontario fiddler who won the Grand Master championship in 1977 but never won the Canadian title.
She taught private fiddle lessons at ETSU and has judged the Grand Master Fiddler Championship in 2016, 2022, and 2025, sitting beside past champions like Justin Branum and Trustin Baker.
Signature tunes and songs
Fiddle Patch Kern County Breakdown Growling Old Man and Grumbling Old Woman Orange Blossom Special How Great Thou Art.
Essential recordings
I Hear Bluegrass Calling Me, Carolina Blue (2018) Take Me Back, Carolina Blue (2020) When the Water Goes Down, ETSU Bluegrass Pride Band (2021)
Awards and honors
Grand Master Fiddler Championship (2015) Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship (2017) IBMA Momentum Award, Instrumentalist of the Year (2018) Grand Master Fiddler Championship judge (2016, 2022, 2025)
Watch and listen
Porchak plays Dale Potter’s Fiddle Patch with Dan Boner on guitar. Watch how she keeps the double stops clean at speed.
Her winning set at the 27th Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Competition in 2017. Listen for the shift between the waltz and the hoedown.
What to learn from Porchak
Learn a Kenny Baker tune the way she did. Pick one, such as Growling Old Man and Grumbling Old Woman, and play it with Baker’s record until your bow lands where his does. The technique to steal is her long bow. Contest fiddlers learn to use the whole bow on slow tunes and to keep the tone even from frog to tip. Play a waltz with a metronome and count how many notes you can fit on one stroke. That control shows up later in every fast bluegrass break you play.
Sources
Aynsley Porchak wins Canadian Grand Masters, Bluegrass Today Aynsley Porchak to Carolina Blue, Bluegrass Today Aynsley Plays Kenny on social media in July, Bluegrass Today ETSU welcomes Aynsley Porchak and Dan Eubanks to bluegrass faculty, Bluegrass Today Timmy Jones leaving Carolina Blue, Bluegrass Today Introducing the Tennessee Bluegrass Band, Bluegrass Today Tennessee Bluegrass Band announces new members, Bluegrass Today Aynsley Porchak and Avery Welter to Darren Nicholson Band, Bluegrass Today Aynsley Porchak to Crossroads Music, Bluegrass Today 2015 results, Grand Master Fiddler Championship Past judges, Grand Master Fiddler Championship Past champions and results, Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Association Aynsley Porchak, IBMA award recipients Aynsley Porchak, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more. Porchak built her sound on Kenny Baker. Shane Cook is the other Canadian to win a major American title. Maddie Denton won the Grand Master championship the year after her, and Trustin Baker placed second to her in 2015.