The featured fiddler on the soundtrack for the Billy Bob Thornton movie, “The Astronaut Farmer”, Clarence Ferrari began playing Bluegrass fiddle at the age of five. He won his first Old-Time fiddle contest in Nashville when he was six.

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Clarence has performed with countless musicians including Pete Seeger, Tom Chapin, Tom Paxton, Roswell Rudd, Davey Arthur (The Furies), Les Binks (Judas Priest), Mary Rafferty (Liam Clancy, Cherish The Ladies), Jon Graboff (Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams) and The Brooklyn Philharmonic.  Clarence has appeared on some of the world's finest stages including The Kennedy Center and Chicago's Symphony Center.

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Clarence studied fiddle with Jay Ungar and Dewey Balfa, jazz composition with Jimmy Heath, Donald Byrd and Roland Hanna, and classical composition with Thea Musgrave and Bruce Sailor.

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Bringing his “fast and floating fiddle” to the world of Irish music, Clarence began touring North America and Europe at the age of nineteen with well-known Celtic groups such as Lenahan, The Jodee James Band, Ffynnon and The McCabes.

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For five years Clarence had his own Bluegrass band, named Blue Harvest. Blue Harvest performed at festivals and taught workshops up and down the East Coast, in addition to being a fixture in the NYC Bluegrass/Country scene. Along the way, Clarence sat in with such luminaries as Rosanne Cash, Mark O’Connor, Chris Thile, Tony Trischka and Greg Garing.

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Clarence performed for over a decade with Dominic Chianese, best known as “Uncle Junior” from “The Sopranos”. With Dominic, Clarence played everything from Broadway standards to Tin Pan Alley to Italian ballads.

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Clarence has been a long standing member of The Dirdy Birdies Jug Band.  The Birdies have been performing together for over fifty years.  They have been recognized by the state of New Jersey as "The Official Jug Band of New Jersey".

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From 2015 to 2018 Clarence performed with Deadgrass, including an appearance at The Capitol Theater (Port Chester, NY) and a live broadcast for The Vermont Television Network.

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From 2016 to 2017, Clarence performed a series of "Folk Fusion" concerts with Tara Linhardt. Tara is featured in the award winning documentary "The Mountain Music Project", which explores the traditional music of Nepal, while highlighting the similarities between Nepali folk music and Appalachian folk music. Along with Tara, Clarence performed with internationally renowned Sarangi player Shyam Nepali, at venues such as The Rubin Museum, The Common Ground Concert Series, The Carey Institute for Global Good and Arts Westchester.

 

From 2015 to 2022 Clarence performed with the Bluegrass band Moonshine Falls, appearing at festivals and concert series throughout the North East, in addition to being the "house band" for the New York Botanical Gardens for two years.

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In addition to public performances, Clarence has performed at over a thousand private events, bringing the same level of passion and professionalism that he brings to the stage.

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Clarence has appeared on dozens of recording projects, including sessions produced by Grammy Award winning producer C Lanzbom, David Bennett Cohen (Country Joe and The Fish) and Brent McLaughlin (The Gordons, Bailter Space).

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Although he is best known as a performer, Clarence is also a respected violin teacher. Clarence has taught violin privately for thirty years, in addition to working for four years at The Hoboken Charter School and six years at The Boys' Club of New York. Clarence has taught hundreds of students of all ages and levels. He even taught his daughter to play violin when she was four. Besides getting people started on the violin, Clarence has helped his students get into several specialized schools including the Pre-College division at Julliard.

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In addition to being a violin teacher, Clarence is an accomplished music teacher. While at The Hoboken Charter School, Clarence taught an Ethnomusicology class. This class exposed children to music from all over the world, while providing a social and historical context for that music.

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With his band Blue Harvest, Clarence taught several workshops on the history of American music including presentations for The Brooklyn Children's Museum, The Staten Island Children's Museum and the prestigious Elgin Academy.

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Since 2012, Clarence has presented "A History of Irish Music". Combining music and history, this program was created for the New York Public Library. It has been performed at libraries throughout Manhattan and New Jersey.

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Whether he is on stage, in the classroom, in the recording studio or playing your family's wedding, Clarence brings a wealth of knowledge and a lifetime of experience to everything he does.