Izaak Atlas Schwartz

A multi-instrumentalist and composer, 14-year-old Izaak Atlas Schwartz began his musical studies at the age of five on the piano. 

 

When his family moved from Virginia to the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania in 2017 he found himself in a hot-bed of Appalachian traditional music, something that connected deep in his bones to his Appalachian heritage in NC, GA, & TN. The historic Wind Gap Bluegrass festival and Appalachian Fiddle and Bluegrass Association (AFBA) festivals take place 20 minutes from his home, and he is now a scholarship student with the AFBA.

 

While he started learning dobro, guitar, bass and mandolin at the kids’ academies at these festivals, he picked up the banjo in the summer of 2022 and has made it his main focus ever since. He studies under Trevin Nelson and Tony Trischka and has won First Place awards in both Bluegrass and Clawhammer styles of playing.

 

He has been featured on Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour epidsode 1133, and on Season 3 of Woodsongs Kids as well. He is an IBMA Foundation 2025 Fletcher Bright Memorial Grant recipient, a scholarship awardee for Jack Hatfield's SPBGMA banjo camp, and Grey Fox scholarship recipient, among other distinctions.

 

He currently plays banjo for the bands Long Acre Hollow out of Lebanon, PA, and Full Steam (an inter-state all-youth band whose members hail from FL,PA, & TN). Both bands will be playing the Wind Gap Bluegrass Festival in 2025. And Long Acre Hollow will be playing The AFBA Bluegrass festival as well.

Izaak is the church organist and pianist for Knowlton Presbyterian Church in Columbia, NJ. And in his free time, if he is not composing, playing, or learning a new instrument, he is usually reading about history or watching classic American TV like "The Lone Ranger" or "The Rifleman".