Name of Person: Don Grieser

Don Grieser lives in Pine Hill, between Grants and Zuni Pueblo near El Morro National Monument, where he often performs, and plays bluegrass in Albuquerque with the band Sons of Others. He also performs regularly with Jonathan Lee Pickens & Walker Pickens (father and son) in El Morro at the Inscription Rock Trading Co. and the Old School Gallery.  By day, he works as the systems manager at the Pine Hills School District on the Navajo Nation.

Grieser was first drawn to music as a youngster, when he played piano. At 12, he picked up the guitar. “Then, when I turned 40, I fell in love with the mandolin and have played it for the past 14 years,” he says. “For me, playing the mandolin is fun like driving a sports car. Now, playing a guitar feels like I’m driving a big Mack truck. That’s more work than fun.”   New Mexico Magazine - 2010

"The old fiddle tunes provide the foundation for bluegrass and old time music. When I began to write melodies on the mandolin, they were firmly based in the fiddle tune tradition. But I wanted to hear them played on mandolin, mandola, and mandocello instead of the instruments of a string band or bluegrass band. The melodies took on a classical air when I played them on the mandolin family instruments, and what I call Hillbilly Chamber Music was born."

Don Grieser