age of 6 helps musician
take center stage with ease
Family support since the
age of 6 helps musician
take center stage with ease
By linda denicola
Staff Writer
VERONICA YANKOWSKI Competing against fiddlers from as far as West Virginia, Julianne Koserowski, 11, won the New Jersey State Fair fiddle championship in the 16-and-under division in August. She has been playing the fiddle since she was 6.
At 11 years old, Julianne Koser-owski is already a seasoned performer. Playing her fiddle in public is no problem, she said.
"It doesn’t make me nervous," she said.
The young Freehold Borough resident took first prize at the New Jersey State Fair fiddle championship in the 16-and-under division in August. She competed against fiddlers from as far away as West Virginia.
Julianne played Bill Monroe’s "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and a medley consis-ting of the traditional fiddle tunes "Cripple Creek" and "Shortnin’ Bread" in front of a crowd of several hundred enthusiasts who stomped their feet and clapped their hands.
Julianne has been playing the fiddle since she was 6 and recently played with Strolling BGA, a kids’ bluegrass group and offshoot of Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival’s Bluegrass Academy for Kids, which she attended in July. The five-member group performed before several thousand people at the festival.
Julianne loves all types of music, particularly bluegrass, which she says is fun to play and listen to. Her favorite musician is fiddler Jason Carter, and her favorite piece is "Foggy Mountain Breakdown."
She fell in love with bluegrass music at a festival that she attended with her parents.
"There was a girl playing the fiddle and I really liked it," Julianne said.
But the young musician does not just play the fiddle. She is studying the mandolin, another favorite instrument of bluegrass musicians.
The fifth-grader is an A student at St. Rose of Lima School, Freehold. She also runs cross country, plays soccer and rides horses.
Her father, George, has encouraged her interest in bluegrass. He says the music is becoming very popular, something its creator Bill Monroe would have loved. Monroe, and his band, The Blue Grass Boys, made bluegrass music a new genre in the late 1930s-40s when they performed on the radio and at the Grant Ole Opry.
A Kentucky native, Monroe, who played the mandolin, eventually created the Bean Blossom Festival, where musicians and bluegrass lovers come to listen to bands and to play in informal jam sessions.
Monroe died in 1996 at the age of 84, but not before he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Association International Hall of Fame, among other distinctions. His song, "Blue Moon of Kentucky," was named the official state song of Kentucky.
Julianne’s father backed her up on the guitar during the recent contest.
"I was wearing one of Bill Monroe’s belt buckles while I backed Julie up on guitar," he said. "I bought several items, including the buckle, at his estate auction last year. I keep them in a display case in my home. Bill loved belt buckles and I thought it would be fun to wear his at Julie’s performance."