PETE ROSS is a banjo maker, researcher, and musician who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Pete is one of earliest contemporary makers of gourd banjos, ranging from those of his own design to exact replicas of historic instruments. His reconstructions of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century banjos have been featured internationally in museums, art galleries, movies, documentaries, and live performances.
Pete holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City, where his senior thesis focused on reconstructions of the New World banjo, and on the banjo’s place in the broader American culture. Shortly after graduating from SVA in 1994, a large part of this thesis work was exhibited at CBs Gallery, The Bowery.
In 1994, Scott Didlake, a master early-banjo builder living in Jackson, Mississippi, offered Pete an apprenticeship to study with him. After Scott's death, Pete returned to his home state of Maryland, where he has continued the research needed to authentically recreate the banjo in its earliest New World form.
His banjos have been exhibited in the Museum of Musical Instruments, Brussels, Belgium; Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix, Arizona; Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia; George Washington Historical Birthplace National Park, Colonial Beach, Virginia; Blue Ridge Institute, Ferrum, Virginia; Appomattox State Courthouse National Park, Appomattox, Virginia; Mercer Museum, Pennsylvania; Hines History Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; National Museum of African American Music, Nashville, Tennessee (forthcoming); Lefferts Historic House, Brooklyn, New York; and the Crooked Trail Road, Galax, Virginia. Photographs of his instruments have appeared in Picturing the Banjo by Leo G. Mazow; Banjo: America’s African Instrument by Laurent du Bois; Banjo: An Illustrated History by Bob Carlin; and Building New Banjos for an Old-Time World by Richard Jones-Bamman.
In 2010 he received a Maryland State Arts Council Apprenticeship award to study techniques of late 19th-century banjo construction with master luthier, Kevin Enoch. Pete’s latest instruments are inspired by the 1890s-1910s "classic-era" banjos but made for the contemporary Old-Time music setting. They feature intricate mother-of-pearl inlays, engravings, hardwood necks, ebony fingerboards.
In 2014, Pete co-curated “Making Music: The Banjo in Baltimore and Beyond” with Greg Adams and Robert Winans. The exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry explored the mid- to -late nineteenth century Baltimore banjo maker William E. Boucher, Jr. and the transformation of the banjo to a commercial product. He has an essay about the Haiti Banza discovery and early banjos in Banjo Roots and Branches (University of Illinois, 2018). Ross has lectured on banjo history and taught banjo construction and performance at the Baltimore Civil War Museum; Augusta Heritage Workshops; The National Folk Festival; The Black Banjo Gathering; and elsewhere.
PRESS
WYPR 88.1 (2014)
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WAMU 88.5 (2014)
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What Weekly (2012)
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PRX (2004)
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Baltimore Magazine (2003)
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BANJOS OWNED BY
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Mike Seeger, Bob Carlin, Cheik Hamala Diabate, Joe Ayers, Barou Sall, Jeff Menzies, David Hyatt, Cecilia Conway, Rex Ellis, Peter Szego, Sule Greg Wilson, Rhiannon Giddens and many others.
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COLLECTIONS |
Museum of Musical Instruments, Brussels, Belgium; Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix, Arizona; Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia; George Washington Historical Birthplace National Park, Colonial Beach, Virginia; Blue Ridge Institute, Ferrum, Virginia; Appomattox State Courthouse National Park, Appomattox, Virginia; Mercer Museum, Pennsylvania; Hines History Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; National Museum of African American Music, Nashville, Tennessee (forthcoming); Lefferts Historic House, Brooklyn, New York; and the Crooked Trail Road, Galax, Virginia.
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EXHIBITS & CATALOGS
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The Banjo in Virginia, Blue Ridge Institute, Ferrum, Virginia; Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia; The Birth of the Banjo, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York; The Banjo: From Africa To America and Beyond, Frank C. McClung Museum, Knoxville; The Banjo: The People and the Sounds of America’s Folk Instrument, Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington Massachusetts and Long Island Museum of American Art, Stoneybrook, New York; Lift Every Voice: Music and American Life, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Virginia
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FILM |
Librarian and the Banjo; North American Banjo Builders; Slavery and the Making of America, PBS, episode 2 "Liberty in the Air"; The History Detectives "Slave Banjo”; Banjos Ringing, The Maryland Banjo Academy, Buckeystown, Maryland; A Banjo Frolic, by Gerard De Smaele and Patrick Ferryn
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LECTURES |
The Baltimore Civil War Museum; The Banjo Gathering; Black Banjo Gathering. Pete was selected by the National Council for the Traditional Arts to display his banjos, speak on the history of the Banjo and build a reconstruction of an 18th century banjo on site at the 2005 National Folk Festival, Richmond VA.
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