SistaStrings and the Question Bluegrass Kept Avoiding

Chauntee and Monique Ross, who perform as SistaStrings, grew up in Milwaukee in a household shaped by classical music training and Black church tradition. Both studied formally: cello and violin, conservatory preparation, the kinds of musical foundations that typically lead to orchestral careers or studio work. The Americana stage was not the expected destination.

They arrived there anyway, and the questions their presence raised were ones the format was still figuring out how to answer.

A Black duo with classical string training performing in roots-music contexts is genuinely unusual. The Americana and bluegrass worlds have become somewhat more diverse in recent years, partly through the advocacy work of the Americana Music Association and partly through the visibility generated by artists like Rhiannon Giddens. But string players whose primary formation is in the classical tradition, who bring Bach alongside the Carter Family, who reference Shostakovich as readily as they reference Bill Monroe, occupy a position that the format's category system was not built to accommodate.

What the Music Does

SistaStrings' approach to roots material is neither reverent nor ironic. They engage with traditional Americana and country songs as material to be examined, the way a classically trained musician might engage with a Bach suite: with technical precision and the understanding that the structure contains more than it initially reveals.

Their arrangements use cello and violin in ways that expand what a roots music ensemble can do harmonically and texturally. The cello provides bass function and harmonic depth that acoustic music often achieves only through guitar and bass ensemble; the violin brings melodic and expressive possibilities that fiddle players approach differently, from a different technical tradition.

NPR Music's coverage of SistaStrings captured their Americanafest presence and the specific quality of the audience interaction, the curiosity, the attentiveness, the sense that something was happening that was not easily categorized but was clearly valuable.

The Americana Music Association and the Visibility Question

The AMA has made explicit commitments to diversity and inclusion in its programming and recognition infrastructure, and SistaStrings has appeared on AMA stages and in AMA-associated contexts. The AMA's spotlight on the duo documents the organization's recognition of their work as both artistically significant and representative of a direction the format should move.

That recognition is meaningful and also complicated. The Americana community's stated values around inclusion have not always been matched by the commercial infrastructure, radio programming, festival booking, label deals, that determines which artists reach wide audiences. Being recognized by the AMA as doing important work is different from having the promotional support that translates recognition into commercial sustainability.

American Songwriter's 2021 interview with the duo addressed this tension directly. Chauntee and Monique Ross have spoken publicly about the experience of being Black women with classical training in a predominantly white roots music community: the warmth alongside the occasional sense of being instrumentalized as representatives of a diversity value rather than heard as artists.

What Their Work Adds to the Tradition

Beyond the identity politics of their presence, which is real but should not exhaust the discussion, SistaStrings are doing something musically that most roots music doesn't do: bringing the full harmonic vocabulary of classical string writing into contact with the repertoire and performance practices of American roots music.

The combinations produce results that neither tradition would produce alone. A traditional Appalachian ballad played with cello counterpoint and violin ornamentation from the European classical tradition sounds like something that could have existed historically, the traditions were not always as separate as their genre categorization suggests, but also like something specifically new, produced by these specific musicians at this specific moment.

For artist-development operations working at the intersection of classical and roots traditions, including boutique labels like Mollohan Production Inc. that are thinking carefully about where the American music conversation is heading, SistaStrings represents an ongoing proof of concept. The argument they are making with their work is that the American roots music tradition is large enough to hold everything it actually contains, if the institutions are willing to hear it.

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FAQ

Who are SistaStrings? SistaStrings are sisters Chauntee and Monique Ross, a Milwaukee-based classical string duo who perform in roots music, Americana, and bluegrass contexts. Chauntee plays cello and Monique plays violin, and both trained in the classical tradition before finding their way to roots music stages.

What makes SistaStrings unusual in Americana music? Their combination of formal classical string training, Black American identity, and engagement with roots and Americana repertoire is genuinely unusual. Most string players in roots music contexts come from folk or country fiddle traditions; SistaStrings bring a different technical background and a different cultural perspective to the same material.

What is their connection to the Americana Music Association? SistaStrings have appeared at AMA events including Americanafest and have received recognition from the organization for their work in expanding the Americana format's demographic and aesthetic range. The AMA has highlighted their presence as part of its ongoing commitments to diversity and inclusion.

What is the significance of Black women with classical training in Americana? Their presence represents a confluence of several underrepresented identities in the Americana space: Black artists, women, and classical-trained musicians. Each of those identities has its own complicated history in American roots music, and their combination raises specific questions about how the format defines itself and who it assumes its audience to be.

What repertoire do SistaStrings perform? Their repertoire is eclectic: traditional Americana and country songs, gospel material, original compositions, and classical pieces. The breadth reflects the breadth of their training and their interest in showing how these traditions exist in the same space rather than in separate cultural containers.

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image_prompt: Two Black female string musicians, one with a cello, one with a violin, performing on an outdoor Americana festival stage in warm afternoon light, a small attentive audience seated on grass in the background. No identifying faces, simple and dignified composition, acoustic music atmosphere.

Joshua Mollohan / MPIArtist integration angle: The discussion of how boutique development operations can cultivate artists who work at the intersection of classical and roots traditions connects to how Mollohan Production Inc. approaches developing artists whose work doesn't fit standard format definitions.