Matt Shipman, who has become a familiar face on the traditional music stages of New England and has been performing for 10 years all the way from the Mid-West to the East Coast. He is from Exeter, NH but has lived all over the country and has now lived in Maine for the last 9 years. Matt began to play guitar and mandolin in his early teens taught himself to play. He also enjoys playing bozouki, tenor and old time 5 string banjo. He also grew up playing jazz trumpet and had a brief career with that at the Hartt School of music in CT, before doing a semester of Native American studies in South Dakota where he ended up living and performing for a number of years.
His love of traditional music is reflected later in his college career, a 2004 graduate of Vermont College, majoring in a self designed major of Traditional Music Studies. For this study he traveled through Nova Scotia, North Carolina and Maine compiling songs and stories from people he met, which later culminated as a radio documentary about traditional music in the 21st century. During that time he also attended the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago where he studied various instruments and styles.
The groups Matt is a part of include: The High Range from NH; Splittin’ Hairs, a fiddle duo with Melissa Bragdon; Erica Brown’s Bluegrass Connection; The Stowaways; Branach traditional Irish trio; and playing in various ensembles of traditional Irish music. He has one recording of his own called “Highway Shoes” and another with High Range called “Shoulder to the Wheel”, and has recorded on various others including Ron Cody’s “Talking Rake”.