Strange Brew presents Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman at Róisín Dubh for their debut tour of Ireland and the UK.

Brooklyn’s 18-year old banoist/vocalist Nora Brown and award-winning fiddle player Stephanie Coleman team up for EP Lady of the Lake (Jalopy Records)
Bob Boilen writes, “This music still feels inspiring, with emotions of yearning and joy that are still central to our being… Tiny Desk fans may remember first meeting Nora Brown a few years back, when this 10th grader performed a Tiny Desk (home) concert thirty feet below the surface in Brooklyn. Now, with her musical soulmate, the two perform a few songs behind my desk.”

Brown—Brooklyn, NY’s eighteen-year-old banjoist/vocalist who has appeared at Newport Folk Festival, The Kennedy Center, Trans-Pecos Festival, globalFEST, and more—teamed up with award-winning fiddle player and fellow Brooklynite Stephanie Coleman for the EP Lady of the Lake, which came out in July via Jalopy Records digitally and will come out on vinyl in early 2024. The duo performs two songs from the EP on the Tiny Desk Concert. Brown and Coleman discuss both the history of the songs they play and their own paths to folk music.

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Reviews on the EP have been strong: Songlines Magazine said, “Despite their twenty-year age difference, the chemistry and richness of Brown and Coleman’s musical partnership cannot be overstated, and it reflects the six years the duo have performed live together.”
World Music Central called Nora “a banjo prodigy.”

Coleman learned the instrumental title track from a performance by Eric Merrill at the fiddle competition in West Virginia’s Appalachian String Band Music Festival, aka “Clifftop.” The song originated with Galax, VA fiddler Parley Parsons via the great fiddle and banjo player Paul Brown. It was released today as the first single from the EP (OK to share).

Over the past two decades, fellow Brooklynite Stephanie has established herself as a highly respected and sought-after practitioner of traditional Appalachian and Midwestern style old-time fiddle. She holds the record for most ribbons won in the renowned fiddle contest at the Appalachian String Band Music Festival in Clifftop, WV—where she first heard and learned the title track of the EP. Stephanie has recorded and toured internationally with artists such as trailblazing all-women stringband Uncle Earl, Watchhouse’s Andrew Marlin, GRAMMY Award-winning singer/songwriter Aoife O’Donovan, and clawhammer banjo virtuoso Adam Hurt.

The EP was produced, recorded, and mixed by the legendary Peter K. Siegel, who recorded Neil Young, Joseph Spence, and Doc Watson; recorded concerts that were later released by Mississippi John Hurt, Roscoe Holcomb, and Dock Boggs; taped an iconic Bob Dylan bootleg in the basement of Gerde’s Folk City; and has made vital field recordings on musicians from Indonesia, India, China, and Sweden.

Of the duo, Siegel said, “I was a big fan of both Nora and Steph when they were performing separately. Their new collaboration is more than the sum of its parts. They make their virtuosity so much fun to listen to. Their music is deeply rooted in American tradition, but the excitement of their performances is all theirs.”