Justin Hiltner

IBMA Award nominee Justin Hiltner is a banjo player and songwriter based in Nashville, TN. His high-energy, Scruggs-style picking is unique in its combination of traditional aesthetic and progressive, outside-the-box thinking. Having a dynamic, variable voice on the banjo has given him opportunities across genres, not simply in straight-ahead bluegrass or “newgrass” alone, but also in folk, country, singer/songwriter, and Celtic. His original songs don’t fall neatly into any of these genre labels, but are instead focused on their stories - which are intensely personal, while maintaining relatability and accessibility. His debut solo album finished and awaiting release in fall 2021, it’s a collection of stripped down, unencumbered originals - just a songwriter, his banjo, and his songs.

Over the course of his eleven years in Music City he’s toured, performed, and collaborated with bluegrass greats such as Bluegrass Hall of Famer Roland White, Laurie Lewis, Jim Lauderdale, Ronnie McCoury, Molly Tuttle, and Missy Raines. In 2016 he was nominated for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Instrumentalist Momentum Award. As a songwriter he has been featured in the IBMA Official Songwriter Showcase and he received an Honorable Mention in American Songwriter magazine’s Lyric Contest. In 2019 he was nominated for IBMA’s Collaborative Recording of the Year Award for his performance on Roland White’s “Soldier’s Joy/Ragtime Annie” from White’s album, Tribute to the Kentucky Colonels.

An activist and proponent of inclusion and visibility in roots music, he produced the first ever showcase of diversity in bluegrass, now an annual event at IBMA’s business conference, and he authors the eponymous “Shout & Shine” interview series, which focuses on underrepresented and marginalized identities in roots music, for The Bluegrass Situation.

Hiltner is a co-founder of Bluegrass Pride, a non-profit 501(c)(3) with a mission of uplifting LGBTQ+ folks in bluegrass and roots music and currently serves on BGP’s board of directors. He also serves on Folk Alliance International’s Cultural Equity Council.

His debut full-length album, Watch It Burn, made with friend, co-writer, and bluegrass renaissance man Jon Weisberger, was released on Robust Records in August 2018. The record features 11 songs written by Hiltner and Weisberger and an all-star cast: Molly Tuttle, Tim O'Brien, Kimber Ludiker, Tristan Scroggins, Casey Campbell, Brandon Godman, Corrina Logston, Amanda Fields, Vickie Vaughn, and Ellie Hakanson.

Hiltner just completed a year-long national tour with Broadway’s Tony Award-winning 2019 revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! He can be seen performing Bright Star – a musical written by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell – at the Actor’s Playhouse at Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables, FL from March 29 to April 16, 2023. Tickets and more information here.

‘1992,’ Hiltner’s highly anticipated solo, full-length debut, is available now. It was selected as a Best of 2022 album by NPR Music, Slate, and more.