Nora Brown: Student of the Banjo

For a 20-year-old, old-time banjoist, Nora Brown already has quite the resume.

She’s toured the United States, Japan, and Europe. She’s recorded four albums. She’s appeared at the Newport Folk Festival, on NPR’s All Songs Considered, and has performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. Twice.

Oh, and she’s a full-time college student, where, among other things, she’s an American Studies major and leads a Slavic choir.

“It's a little bit difficult to coordinate, but I mostly play shows when I have breaks,” Brown explains. “I'm not a working musician at this point in my life. Over the summer and on my break is when I'm really working and doing music stuff. There are conflicts that can be tricky to figure out.”

The Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights isn’t particularly known as an incubator for clawhammer banjo players, but that’s where Brown, as a six-year-old ukulele student, was introduced to old-time music by her teacher, the late Shlomo Pestco.

“A whole new world kind of opened up for me in terms of music. Not that I had a lot of worlds going already at six, but that was how I was exposed to old-time music and traditional music from different parts of the world.

“I also met a lot of great friends through the music, and I think that that helped maintain my interest in it because lots of people around me were playing, and it was a real community, and that really encouraged my continued participation.

“Shlomo’s house was full of instruments, and we would sit encircled by them. He had them all on stands, and there were two chairs in the middle, so I was always seeing all of these different instruments. Sometimes, at the end of the lesson, I would pick different ones up and then try them. I ended up playing the banjo ukulele for a while, which is like a hybrid instrument, and I got really used to the sound in the projection of the instrument, and I think I just kind of liked the tone.”

Brown attended the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, a high school in Queens.

“I was singing a lot of classical songs and that really helped me understand my own voice, but still, I wasn't as intrigued by the theory behind it, which is a big part of music education.”

What intrigued her was the music of Eastern Kentucky.

“When I was a kid, I learned a lot of music in Whitesburg, Ky., at the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School,” Brown explains. “I also visited a few real old masters of the music when I was younger, and that was an influential period of time where I was very focused specifically on Eastern Kentucky banjo music.

“I also learned a lot when I was about 12 from John Haywood. He’s a very legit Eastern Kentucky player, and he really plays in that specific regional style.”

Brown’s banjo playing incorporates many sounds and textures. Her clawhammer playing can be both brash and subtle. It can evoke the rawness of old-time music and the sophistication of a thoughtful, introspective artist.

“I'm generally drawn towards the more mellow, warmer-sounding tones that the banjo can produce,” Brown says. “Usually, there’s a lot of brightness with the banjo. But the banjo can also make really nice, warm, mellow sounds, and I'm really attracted to that.”

Brown’s playing is often punctuated with harmonics, a chime-like sound created by barely touching the string above the fret. This technique is often used in the Eastern Kentucky style of playing.

“I also do a lot of two-finger playing. People play two-finger banjo style in a lot of places, but it is especially prevalent in Eastern Kentucky, and that's where I was introduced to it.”

In addition to performing and recording on her own, Brown is an enthusiastic musical collaborator. In 2023, Brown recorded Lady of the Lake with fiddler Stephanie Coleman, a frequent colleague in the studio and at shows.

“Stephanie and I have just always gotten along really well. We've been great friends for a really long time. We have similar values in what we think is good and what we think is important. It's great playing with Stephanie.”

Brown and Coleman have recently completed a tour of the United Kingdom. She says the audience is interested in her music.

“It's not too different from America in a lot of ways. There's a heavy connection between the British Isles folk music and American folk. People often put them in the same bucket.”

The new year will bring a new semester for Brown. And she’s got plenty going on in addition to her studies.

“I'll be touring in California at the beginning of the year, and I will also be doing some recording in January. I'll have some projects coming out in the following months, so January is going to be a big time for me.”