Brittany Haas (born 1987) is an old-time fiddler who plays in some of the most forward-looking string bands in America. She toured with Darol Anger at 14, made four records with Crooked Still while at Princeton, co-founded the instrumental quartet Hawktail, and joined Punch Brothers in 2023 as the band’s first new member in 18 years. The Americana Music Association named her Instrumentalist of the Year in 2020.
Why Haas matters
Most fiddlers who play new music leave old-time behind. Haas did the opposite. She kept the drone-heavy sound of the southern fiddlers she learned from Bruce Molsky and dropped it into bands that write in odd meters and shifting keys. Bruce Molsky calls her the voice of what fiddling has become. For a jammer, she is proof that the old bowing patterns still work in any music you want to play.
Life and career
Haas was born in 1987 in Menlo Park, California. She took classical violin lessons from age eight, and her teacher used bluegrass sheet music for sight-reading practice. From ages eight to 13 she studied classical violin and fiddle at the same time. At 13 she heard Bruce Molsky play and made fiddle her main instrument. She grew up going to string camps around the country.
In 2001, at age 14, she started touring with Darol Anger and his band the Republic of Strings. Anger produced her self-titled debut album, released in 2004 on Ook Records when she was 17. Molsky, Anger, Mike Marshall, Todd Sickafoose, and her sister Natalie Haas played on it.
From 2005 to 2009 Haas played in Crooked Still while she studied at Princeton. The band made four records with her, including Shaken by a Low Sound (2006) and Some Strange Country (2010), and toured overseas. She graduated from Princeton in 2009 with a degree in evolutionary biology and a minor in music performance.
Her trio with bassist Paul Kowert and guitarist Jordan Tice, Haas Kowert Tice, released You Got This and later added mandolinist Dominick Leslie to become Hawktail. Hawktail has released Unless (2018), Formations (2020), and Place of Growth (2022). From 2015 to 2016 she toured with Dave Rawlings Machine behind Nashville Obsolete, and she played on that album and on Poor David’s Almanack. From fall 2016 she was in the house band on Chris Thile’s radio show Live from Here. She has played with Steve Martin on Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live.
In 2020 she won Instrumentalist of the Year at the Americana Music Honors and Awards. In 2021 East Tennessee State University named her artist in residence. In June 2023 Punch Brothers announced that she would replace founding fiddler Gabe Witcher. The band’s July 2026 album is the first with Haas as a member. In 2025 Berklee College of Music gave her the Eisenson Family Prize for American Roots Music. She also records with her sister Natalie Haas and with Swedish fiddler Lena Jonsson, including the duo album The Snake. She lives in Nashville.
Playing style
Haas plays with an old-time bow arm. She uses short, rhythmic strokes and lets open strings ring under the melody, so a drone sits beneath the phrase. The sound is rougher and more percussive than the smooth bluegrass fiddle most jammers hear first.
What sets her apart is where she takes that sound. In Hawktail and Punch Brothers she plays composed parts in shifting meters and complex harmony, but the bowing stays old-time. Her phrasing sits inside the band rather than on top of it. Darol Anger describes her playing as opening a window and letting the music flood through.
Influences and legacy
Haas learned from Bruce Molsky and Darol Anger, two players who came at the fiddle from opposite directions, and she carries both. In Crooked Still she played beside Tristan Clarridge. In Punch Brothers she plays with Chris Eldridge and Chris Thile. Her sister Natalie Haas is a cellist. She teaches at fiddle camps around the world, and younger old-time players like Tatiana Hargreaves work the same seam between old-time and new string band music that Haas opened.
Essential recordings
Brittany Haas (Ook Records, 2004) Shaken by a Low Sound, Crooked Still (2006) Unless, Hawktail (2018) Formations, Hawktail (2020) Place of Growth, Hawktail (2022)
Awards and honors
Americana Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year (2020) East Tennessee State University artist in residence (2021) Eisenson Family Prize for American Roots Music, Berklee College of Music (2025)
What to learn from Haas
Learn Cluck Old Hen in cross tuning, AEAE, the way the old-time fiddlers Haas learned from play it. The tune is short and modal, and it teaches you to let the open strings drone under the melody instead of playing single clean notes. Then put on a Hawktail record and listen for that same drone under the written parts. The technique to steal is her rhythmic bowing. Play a tune you know with short strokes near the middle of the bow and put a slight accent on the offbeat. That shuffle is what makes her playing groove in a band with no drums, and it works at a bluegrass jam as well as an old-time one.
Sources
Brittany Haas, bio and press, brittanyhaas.com Brittany Haas to Punch Brothers, Bluegrass Today Brittany Haas wins Eisenson Family Prize for American Roots Music, Bluegrass Today Punch Brothers, Nonesuch Records Hawktail, Padiddle Records Brittany Haas, Wikipedia Crooked Still, Shaken by a Low Sound, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more crossover fiddlers. Haas learned from Bruce Molsky and Darol Anger. She followed Gabe Witcher into Punch Brothers and played beside Tristan Clarridge in Crooked Still.