MICHAEL CLEVELAND & JASON CARTER

Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Mission Park

Two of bluegrass music's most celebrated fiddlers, Michael Cleveland and Jason Carter bring a combined legacy of Grammy Awards, IBMA honors, and decades of road-tested artistry to every stage they share. Cleveland, born in southern Indiana and widely regarded as the defining bluegrass fiddler of his generation, picked up the fiddle at age four despite being born blind and later losing significant hearing in one ear. His astonishing technical gifts earned him recognition on the Grand Ole Opry and A Prairie Home Companion while still a teenager, and he has since gone on to win 12 IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year awards, the 2019 Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album for Tall Fiddler, and the 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship, one of the highest honors in American folk and traditional arts. His band, Flamekeeper, has won IBMA's Instrumental Group of the Year seven times.

Carter, raised on the Country Music Highway in Lloyd, Kentucky, has spent thirty years as the fiddle player for the Del McCoury Band, the most awarded group in bluegrass history, and is a founding member of the Travelin' McCourys. A three-time Grammy winner and five-time IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year, he has been featured on recordings by Steve Earle, Ricky Skaggs, Dierks Bentley, Vince Gill, and many others. Together, Cleveland and Carter recorded the acclaimed collaborative album Carter & Cleveland, which won both Album of the Year and Song of the Year at the IBMA Awards and earned Cleveland a Grammy nomination. Their Ventura Music Festival performance promises an evening of fireworks from two masters at the very top of their craft.