26 Facts About Liz Carroll

Liz Carroll was born on September 19,1956 and is an American fiddler and composer.

Liz Carroll is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship Award.

Liz Carroll is considered one of the greatest contemporary Irish fiddlers.

Liz Carroll's parents were born in Ireland; her father Kevin was from Brocca, County Offaly, and her mother Eileen was from Ballyhahill, West Limerick.

Liz Carroll was born September 19,1956, in Chicago, Illinois and raised on Chicago's south side.

Liz Carroll took classical music lessons from nuns at Visitation Catholic School.

Liz Carroll earned a degree in social psychology at DePaul University.

Liz Carroll's influences include Chicago-born Irish fiddler John McGreevy, Irish button accordionist Joe Cooley, Irish fiddler Sean McGuire, 1983 National Heritage Award-winning uilleann piper Joe Shannon, and pianist Eleanor Neary.

Liz Carroll won second place in the All-Ireland under 18 fiddle championship at the 1973 Fleadh Cheoil, the Irish music competition run by Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann; Frankie Gavin won first.

Liz Carroll returned the following year and won first place in the category.

Liz Carroll's febrile bowing is breathtaking, a model of rolls and triplets executed in fleet, articulate clusters.

Liz Carroll sounds almost possessed, yet not once does she lose sight of those traditional reels' melodies in one of the more exhilarating Irish fiddle tracks ever recorded.

Liz Carroll's full-grained, sweet yet sinewy tone and richly lyrical phrasing subtly underscored by Doyle's less-is-more finesse.

Liz Carroll's exceptional playing was distinguished by its muscular, supple lift and swing, immaculately applied ornamentation and fiery attack.

Liz Carroll is one of the String Sisters and performs on their live album and DVD titled Live which was recorded in 2005 and released in 2007.

Liz Carroll composed her first reel at age nine, and had composed one hundred and seventy tunes by 2000.

Liz Carroll is "recognized as a gifted composer of tunes in the Irish idiom," according to the Irish Echo.

Liz Carroll's compositions are in the performance and recorded repertoires of other musicians.

Liz Carroll "has composed more than a dozen tunes that have become beloved standards among her peers," according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Liz Carroll composed the music for The Mai, a play by Irish playwright Marina Carr that opened at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York in 1994.

In 2001 Liz Carroll collaborated with Irish-American author Frank McCourt on staged readings from his works, a production developed by the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago.

Liz Carroll's compositions have been choreographed by Irish dance companies including the Dennehy School of Irish Dancing and Trinity Irish Dance.

In 1994, Liz Carroll received a National Heritage Fellowship, a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 2010, Double Play, Liz Carroll's recording with John Doyle on Compass Records was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Traditional World Music Album, making Liz Carroll the first American-born traditional Irish musician to be nominated for a Grammy.

Liz Carroll was the first American-born composer honored with the award.

In 2015 Liz Carroll said the 2011 composer's award and the 2010 Grammy nomination were the honors of which she was most proud.