AJ and Rina
As a duo, award-winning fiddler and multi-instrumentalist AJ Srubas and guitarist, dancer and bass player Rina Rossi are movers and shakers that have their hands in many musical projects and are stirring up the Midwest traditional music and dance scene with their deep musical knowledge and wide embrace of new voices and younger players.
Rina grew up in Ann Arbor, immersed in the folk and traditional dance scene. Her parents met folk dancing at the famed Ashkenaz Music & Dance Center in Berkeley, CA, and her first memories were going to and falling asleep at folk dances. She grew up listening to old time and bluegrass on the radio and at festivals, and decided to take up the fiddle at age 17. She moved to the Twin Cities at 18 and in 2006 she auditioned for the Wild Goose Chase Cloggers, touring regionally and internationally with the group for 10 years as a dancer and then as a fiddler. Through the cloggers, she became very involved with the vibrant midwest old-time scene, organizing the Moosejaw Old Time Music & Dance Weekend, serving on the Board of the Bluff Country Gathering and coordinating old-time music and dance activities for Minnesota Bluegrass & Old-Time Music Association festivals. A regular square dance caller at the Monday Night Square Dance in Minneapolis, she has called dances at old-time events around the country and world. Like AJ, Rina has taught at a variety of respected traditional music institutions, teaching clogging, square dance calling, bass, old time guitar, and fiddle workshops. In 2025 she founded the Twin Town Old Time Music Festival, which sold out in its inaugural year.
AJ grew up near Green Bay, born into a musical family. He latched on to the fiddle at age 10 after experimenting with the many instruments around his house. Starting off as an Irish fiddle player, he discovered old-time music when his brother took up banjo. AJ has won ribbons five times in both fiddle and band competitions at the Appalachian String Band MusicFestival in Clifftop, West Virginia – one the country’s premier old-time events. A versatile player and teacher, AJ has performed and taught fiddle workshops at renowned traditional music cultural centers such as the Augusta Heritage Center (WV), Festival of American Fiddle Tunes (WA), American Fiddle Method Camp (MN), Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Association events, Minnesota State Fiddlers Association events, the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention (CA), Austin Stringband Festival (TX) and many more in between. He taught at the Center for Irish Music (MN) for many years and continues to teach private lessons and play fiddle and pedal steel with a variety of bands.
When AJ met Rina in 2012, she was already a powerhouse in the old-time music scene. They’ve played together in many projects since then (Steam Machine, Pop Wagner’s Honky Tonk Ranch, the Alum Ridge Boys & Ashlee, and many others). In 2023 they released their first album as a duo, Sweet Bunch of Daisies.
