Matt Flinner's show last year was one of our best. He'll be visiting just after the January release of his latest album,Winter Harvest. His superb trio includes guitarist Ross Martin and bassist Eric Thorin.

Multi-instrumentalist Matt Flinner has made a career out of playing acoustic music in new ways. Starting out as a banjo prodigy who was playing bluegrass festivals before he entered his teens, Flinner later took up the mandolin, won the banjo contest at Winfield Kansas in 1990, and took the mandolin award there the following year.

Flinner is now widely considered one of the hottest mandolin players on the acoustic scene.
Although he lives in Nashville these days, Flinner believes that his early years spent in the Rocky Mountains had a very real impact on his music. "There’s an American harmony in classical music that’s this big wide-open sound -- Aaron Copeland’s work, for example," Flinner says. "So I think there could be something to that, that your surroundings reflect your music." With his singular combination of taste, tone and time, Flinner has created a sound that is unique to his vision and makes an important statement in the evolution of acoustic string band music.

Matt Flinner on Compass Records

Inferno Reel by the Trio