Liz Carroll

Liz Carroll (born September 19, 1956) is an American fiddler and composer. She is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship Award. Carroll and collaborator Irish guitarist John Doyle were nominated for a Grammy Award in 2010. She is considered one of the greatest contemporary Irish fiddlers.

Carroll's parents were born in Ireland; her father Kevin was from Brocca, County Offaly, and her mother Eileen was from Ballyhahill, West Limerick. Her maternal grandfather played the violin and her father played button accordion. Carroll was born September 19, 1956, in Chicago, Illinois and raised on Chicago's south side. She took classical music lessons from nuns at Visitation Catholic School. On Sunday nights, Carroll and her family visited a south side Irish pub that hosted a live radio show featuring traditional Irish music. She earned a degree in social psychology at DePaul University. Carroll's influences include Chicago-born Irish fiddler John McGreevy, Irish button accordionist Joe Cooley, Irish fiddler Sean McGuire, 1983 National Heritage Award-winning uilleann piper Joe Shannon, and pianist Eleanor Neary.

Carroll won second place in the All-Ireland under 18 fiddle championship at the 1973 Fleadh Cheoil, the Irish music competition run by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann; Frankie Gavin won first. Carroll returned the following year and won first place in the category. In the succeeding year, 1975, at age 18, she won the All-Ireland Senior Fiddle Championship, at the time only the second American to have done so. That same year Carroll and Chicago piano accordionist Jimmy Keane won the senior duet championship. The championships brought recognition of Carroll as one of the most outstanding Irish fiddlers of all time.

In 1977, Carroll and button accordionist Tommy Maguire released the album Kiss Me Kate. The following year, Carroll recorded her first solo album A Friend Indeed, accompanied on piano by Marty Fahey, featuring five of her compositions.

In the early 1980s, Carroll toured with Green Fields of America, the Irish traditional music ensemble led by Irish musician and folklorist Mick Moloney. In 1987 she was asked to join the debut tour of the all-female Irish American ensemble Cherish the Ladies, but declined for family reasons.

Carroll's second, eponymous solo album was released in 1988, and featured accompaniment by Irish guitarist Dáithí Sproule. In 1992, Carroll, Sproule, and Irish-American button accordionist Billy McComiskey formed Trian and recorded two albums.

In 2000 she performed with Don Henley of the Eagles in his encore, which included an Irish song, for fourteen U.S. concert dates.

Lost in the Loop (2000), Carroll's first solo album in over a decade, featured thirteen original compositions and was produced by Séamus Egan of Solas. Irish traditional music critic Earle Hitchner of MTV wrote of the track The Silver Spear/The Earl's Chair/The Musical Priest: