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Mariel Vandersteel grew up in the rich musical scene in the San Francisco Bay Area. She spent high school playing for local contra dances as well as performing and touring with Alasdair Fraser and the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers, and the Black Brothers (the brothers of Frances and Mary Black), while she immersed herself in the traditional music of Ireland and Scotland. She received a cultural grant from the Milwaukee Irish Festival in high school and spent several summers studying traditional Irish music at Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy in Co. Clare and at the Irish Traditional Music Archives in Dublin, Ireland.

Mariel moved to Boston in 2005 to attend Berklee College of Music as a scholarship student and has now received a Bachelor’s in Violin Performance. At Berklee she studied with cellists Eugene Friesen and Natalie Haas, violist Melissa Howe, violinist Mimi Rabson and mandolinist John McGann. While at Berklee, she was a founding member of the eclectic contemporary Scandinavian-Old Time string band, Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers (BMUZ).

BMUZ has since gone on to perform at the Kennedy Center, the Freight and Salvage (CA), Club Passim (MA) and on the Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour (KY). In 2008 they were selected out of 400 applicants to perform in the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival’s Emerging Artist Showcase. They were voted back to play in the Most Wanted Artists songswap at the 2009 FRFF. The band is currently working on recording a full-length album. In the summer of 2009, Mariel joined The Folk Arts Quartet, which has now changed their name to the Paper Star Trio. The PST is Julie Metcalf on viola, Emma Beaton on cello and Mariel on fiddle.

Inspired by her summers spent studying traditional music in Ireland and across the United States, Mariel decided to study music in Norway after graduating from Berklee. She is studying the hardingfele and Norwegian folk music at Høgskolen i Telemark Rauland. While in Norway, she has performed at outdoor festivals and in the local elementary school where she taught children about American folk music.

Mariel has taught at Alasdair Fraser’s Sierra Fiddle Camp, has been an assistant teacher at Fiddlekids, a SF Bay Area fiddle camp for children, and has shared the stage with Alasdair Fraser, Laura Risk, Hanneke Cassel, Natalie Haas, Tristan and Tashina Clarridge, Nic Gareiss, Andre Brunet, and Philip Bailey of Earth Wind and Fire.

She currently lives in Norway and will return to Boston in 2010 where she will teach the fiddle and hardingfele and perform with Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers and the Paper Star Trio.

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