Raised next to a farm in the woods of Connecticut, USA, Alyssa Rodriguez has always admired nature and its natural beauty and sounds. She earned her bachelor’s degree of music in music composition from Ithaca College in central New York, where she began immersing herself in fiddle music and playing for dances. She is a certified Suzuki Violin instructor in Pre-Twinkle through Book 4 and studied with Carrie Reuning-Hummel of Ithaca Talent Education.

Alyssa recently completed a Fulbright Fellowship master’s exchange year in Helsinki, Finland at the Sibelius Academy in Folk Music. Her research focused on Finnish and Nordic folk music and new concepts in folk music improvisation. She has presented at Fulbright’s Forum on Education, Innovation, Science, and Art; for the Finger Lakes Finns; and two lecture-recitals at St. Olaf College and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her Fulbright project is available for free on this website under Nordic Music. Alyssa is studying folk music in Tobo, Sweden at the Eric Sahlström Institute 2023-2024, where she is studying nyckelharpa and Swedish fiddle full time while she researches her first book on Nordic fiddle music “Tales and Tunes.”

Alyssa studied in 2022 with Silkroad Ensemble at the Global Musician Workshop at New England Conservatory in Boston. Her music has been featured on WXXI's HomeStage, in CITY Newspaper, Floated Magazine, on WRUR's Open Tunings, KXCI-FM in Arizona, and at the Fulbright Finland Award Ceremony 2022. She plays fiddle with various bands including Irish punk-rock band Sisters of Murphy, swing jazz band The Gregory Street Vagabonds, and historic 19th century fiddle at the Genesee Village Country Museum in Mumford, New York. Her compositions have won 1st prize in Call for Scores composition competitions, and she was commissioned by a New York Council on the Arts funded grant to write a children’s orchestral composition about the Kalevala called Kalevala for Kids.

Alyssa is one of the finest players of the nyckelharpa, the keyed fiddle, on the East Coast and has studied nyckelharpa at Sibelius Academy and with many riksspellmän (master Swedish folk musicians) in Sweden. She has studied at the Eric Sahlström Institute, the all nyckelharpa workshop intensive at Ekebyholm Castle in Sweden and regularly sells out shows. She has appeared in Nordstjernan magazine and Nyckelharpan in Sweden, and released an all nyckelharpa album of traditional and newly composed music in December 2022 “Postcards.”