As a 7-time West Virginia state fiddle champion and
2023 Grand Master Traditional Fiddle Champion, Tessa McCoy’s
mastery of her driving old-time fiddle style has positioned her as
one of the most significant fiddlers living in Appalachia today.
Born and raised in Saint Albans, WV, Tessa spent much of her youth in the Kanawha Valley, ripening into the next link in an unbroken chain of traditional music and culture in the region. While clearly blazing a path of her own, her early influence from fiddlers Bobby Taylor, Jake Krack and Dave Bing shine through in her playing.
Tessa made her fiddling debut at The Grand Ole Opry in late summer 2024 playing the tune “Durang’s Hornpipe” as homage to her hometown fiddle hero, Clark Kessinger. She’s been featured twice on NPR’s Mountain Stage and appeared in a 4-page interview in Fiddler Magazine in Winter 2021, WV Public Broadcasting’s ½ hour Clifftop Documentary at the young but already proficient age of 12, and more recently, a WVPBS documentary on old-time fiddling from Clay County, WV.
She can be heard playing around the region with her band, Tessa McCoy and The State Birds, featuring decorated and celebrated West Virginia musicians Cody Jordan (banjo), Jesse Milnes (guitar), Joanna Burt-Kinderman (upright bass) and Chance McCoy (mandolin), when he’s not on the road with Old Crow Medicine Show. They released their debut single, West Virginia Hornpipe, in fall 2024, followed by other favorites Things In Life, Birdie and Molly Tenbrooks.
Tessa is the current Artistic Advisor for the Augusta Heritage Center’s Summer Old-Time Week. She is a sought after and gifted instructor, regularly teaching at many old-time camps such as Allegheny Echoes, The Augusta Heritage Center, The Swannanoa Gathering, The Bluff County Gathering and The Floyd Country Store.
Tessa has an entire library of prerecorded video lessons on Patreon, where she uploads a new video each week teaching old-time tunes and techniques. She also gives private lessons both in-person and online. Her adaptive and intuitive teaching style allows her versatility in working on tunes, technique and musicianship with her students.
In 2018, Tessa won 1st place in the traditional band contest at the Appalachian Stringband Festival (Clifftop) with her band, Big Possum Stringband. They went on to release a self-titled album in 2019 and toured across both the US and Australia that summer. She earned two more 1st place wins in 2023 and 2024, this time as “The McCoys” with husband Chance and step-son Edwin.
Tessa is now based in beautiful Monroe County, West Virginia, living along the banks of Indian Creek.
