Stuart Duncan is a bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

 musician who plays the fiddle

Fiddle

The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

, mandolin

Mandolin

A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

, guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 and banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

. Born in Quantico, Virginia

Quantico, Virginia

- Demographics :As of the census of 2000, there are 561 people, 295 households, and 107 families living in the town. The population density is . There are 359 housing units at an average density of .-Racial composition:...

 and raised in Santa Paula, California

Santa Paula, California

Santa Paula is a city within Ventura County, California, United States. The population was 29,321 at the 2010 census, up from 28,598 at the 2000 census...

, where he played in the school band, he has been a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band since 1985, and is a much-in-demand session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

 who has worked with such stars as George Strait

George Strait

George Harvey Strait is an American country music singer, actor, and music producer. Strait is referred to as the "King of Country," and critics call Strait a living legend. He is known for his unique style of western swing music, bar-room ballads, honky-tonk style, and fresh yet traditional...

, Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton

Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...

, Reba McEntire

Reba McEntire

Reba Nell McEntire is an American country music artist and actress. She began her career in the music industry as a high school student singing in the Kiowa High School band , on local radio shows with her siblings, and at rodeos. As a solo act, she was invited to perform at a rodeo in Oklahoma...

 and Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

, to name a few.. Recently Duncan joined forces with cellist Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

, bassist Edgar Meyer

Edgar Meyer

Edgar Meyer is a prominent contemporary bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. Meyer has worked as a session musician in Nashville, part of various chamber groups, a composer, and an arranger...

 and mandolinist Chris Thile

Chris Thile

Christopher Scott Thile is an American musician, best known as the mandolinist and a singer for the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. His current band is Punch Brothers whose most recent album is Antifogmatic...

 in the Goat Rodeo Sessions, an "ambitious and groundbreaking project that brings together four string virtuosos."

As a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band

Nashville Bluegrass Band

The Nashville Bluegrass Band is an American bluegrass music ensemble founded in 1984.The group's members first played together in 1984 as a backing band for Vernon Oxford and Minnie Pearl; each of the members were established musicians from the Nashville bluegrass community. They signed to Rounder...

, he won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album

Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album

The Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality works in the bluegrass music genre...

 in 1994 and 1996, and was named the Academy of Country Music

Academy of Country Music

The Academy of Country Music was founded in 1964 in Los Angeles, California as the Country & Western Music Academy. Whereas the Country Music Association, founded in 1958, was based in Nashville, the Academy sought to promote country music in the western states. Among those involved in the...

 Fiddle Player of the Year for 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2004, and Specialty Instrument Player of the Year for 2006. In 2006, he toured with the Mark Knopfler

Mark Knopfler

Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE is a Scottish-born British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the British rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded in 1977...

/Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...

 Roadrunning tour and is on the All The Roadrunning and Real Live Roadrunning

Real Live Roadrunning

Real Live Roadrunning is a live album by Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris. Released in November 2006, it was recorded at the end of their summer tour in support of their critically acclaimed album, All the Roadrunning. The album is released by Warner Bros. Records and Mercury Records as a DVD...

 albums. In 2008, he toured with the Robert Plant

Robert Plant

Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...

/Alison Krauss

Alison Krauss

Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in...

Raising Sand tour, to much acclaim. He appeared on Transatlantic Sessions Series 4 broadcast by the BBC in September/October 2009.