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Berklee grad Sierra Hull bound for bluegrass stardom

Sierra Hull graduated Berklee College of Music in 2011.Gina Brinkley

Age: 24

Hometown: Byrdstown, Tenn.

Think of: Emmylou Harris’s voice and stage presence, Bill Monroe’s mandolin skills. The next Alison Krauss.

What caught our eye: When mandolin prodigy Sierra Hull was 8, she wowed veteran bluegrass musicians in rural Tennessee. At 10, Hull was asked to play at the Grand Ole Opry; at 11, she was invited back by Alison Krauss. Hull signed to Rounder Records at 13, and a few years later became the first bluegrass musician to receive a Presidential Scholarship to Berklee College of Music. Now 24, the kid wonder has come into her own as an artist. On her fourth album, the Béla Fleck-produced “Weighted Mind,” Hull proves as deft a songwriter as she is a mandolinist. The 2011 Berklee grad makes two stops in Massachusetts this month, including one at her alma mater.

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Lightbulb moments: The first: “I grew up in a small little town — if you can imagine about 900 people in town — so at church, there wasn’t a choir per se; it was more like ‘Does anyone have a song they want to sing?’ . . . I remember when I was 3 or 4, singing ‘He’s Still Working on Me.’ ”

The second: “My great-aunt, uncle, and grandma went in together to get me a fiddle for Christmas. It was too big for me to play, so to save my disappointment, my dad said, ‘Let me show you a few things on mandolin.’ We’d go to bluegrass jam sessions, and I learned a lot from those local musicians. They’d say, ‘Hey why don’t you get up on stage and play with us?’ I was 8 when I first performed on stage. And I fell in love with it. I knew I wanted to do it as my career.”

Biggest thrills: “I did a State Department trip, and in two weeks we went to Micronesia, Jerusalem, and the West Bank area. It was amazing, especially in Micronesia, where they’d never seen these instruments before. Micronesia is fairly disconnected from the rest of the world, so for them to see a banjo, a fiddle, a mandolin for the first time, that was awesome to see their excitement. It wasn’t even for the music — their excitement was in just seeing the instruments.”

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Another big thrill was performing for the PBS Special “The Artists of Country Music: In Performance at the White House” in 2011: “I got to meet the President. And James Taylor made tea for my mama. In the White House.”

Biggest surprise: “One day when I was 11, I’d gone to the grocery store with my mom and when we got home, my dad said: ‘Guess who called for you? Alison Krauss.’ I ended up playing the Grand Ole Opry with her. . . . I’ve heard when people meet their heroes, they’re not what they hoped, but she was what I hoped she’d be.”

Inspired by: Bonnie Raitt, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Krauss, Dolly Parton, Michael Jackson.

Aspires to: “Keep touring and make a new album.”

For good luck: “No crazy rituals, just a lot of praying and trying to keep my feet on the ground.”

What people should know: “I do original music, original lyrics, so I don’t see myself in any one genre — I’m bluegrass-influenced.”

Coming soon: At the Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, April 20 at 8 p.m., 508-324-1926, www.narrowscenter.org. At Berklee College of Music, April 22 at 8 p.m. 617-747-2261, www.berklee.edu

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Link: www.sierrahull.com

Lauren Daley


Interview was condensed and edited. Lauren Daley can be reached at ldaley33@gmail.com.