Appalachian Old Time | Greenville, WV
As a seven-time West Virginia state fiddle champion and current Grand Master Traditional Fiddle Champion, Tessa McCoy’s mastery of her unique and technical old-time fiddling 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. Her driving and specific old-time fiddling style pays homage to her early mentors, Jake Krack and Bobby Taylor, while showcasing her own take on standards, arrangements and festival favorites. She was featured in Fiddler Magazine in Winter 2021, WV Public Broadcasting’s one half hour Cliftop documentary at the age of 12, and more recently, a documentary on old-time fiddling from Clay County, West Virginia. Tessa made her debut at The Grand Ole Opry in summer 2024, where she payed homage to her home town, playing the tune Durang’s Hornpipe.”
With a passion for teaching, Tessa gives private lessons both in-person and online and regularly teaches at many old-time camps such as Allegheny Echoes, The Augusta Heritage Center, Swannanoa and The Floyd Country Store. Her adaptive and intuitive teaching style allows her versatility in working on tunes, technique and musicianship with her students.
In addition to her solo endeavors, Tessa has recently been performing with The State Birds a local old-time project which is comprised of some of West Virginia’s finest old-time musicians (The State Birds released their debut single, West Virginia Hornpipe, in 2024.
She released her first old-time fiddle album in 2018, titled “It’s Hard to Love”, flanked by fellow West Virginia musicians Jesse Milnes and Kim Johnson. That same year, 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, were featured on NPR’s Mountain Stage, and toured across both the US and Australia that summer.
Tessa has recently formed the Big Possum Stringband with like-minded friends to bring Appalachian Old Time music to the stages of the 2025 Montana Folk Festival.