Saturday, January 20, 2024, 6:30 p.m. doors open, 7 p.m. performance
Tickets: MOHA/museum members $12; General Admission $15
Join us for Tar Heel Troubadours, a celebration of Americana, roots, bluegrass, and traditional music performed by artists from or living and working in North Carolina.
A music performance at the North Carolina Museum of History is unlike any other! You’ll enjoy an intimate experience with an artist in our 300-seat venue. Every seat in the house has a fantastic view, and the sound is exceptional. The evening is complete with merchandise available from the artist and a bar with a special beer from Fullsteam Brewery plus wine.
Our Tar Heel Troubadours series works to keep music accessible to our community by keeping ticket prices affordable. There are nine concerts in total for this series including Jim Lauderdale, Fireside Collective, Dawn Landes, Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road, Blue Cactus, Paige King Johnson, the Blue Ridge Girls, and more. Visit the museum’s website for up-to-date information and tickets.
In their ever-expanding body of work—Jens Kruger (banjo and vocals), Uwe Kruger (guitar and lead vocals), and Joel Landsberg (bass and vocals)—the Kruger Brothers personify the spirit of exploration and innovation that forms the core of the American musical tradition. Their original music is crafted around their discerning taste, and the result is unpretentious, cultivated, and delightfully fresh.
Born and raised in Europe, brothers Jens and Uwe Kruger started singing and playing instruments at a very young age. Growing up in a family where music was an important part of life exposed them to a wide diversity of musical influences. The brothers were performing regularly by the time they were 11 and 12 years old respectively, and they began their professional career in 1979. Jens’s and Uwe’s first public performances were as a duo, and in just a few years, they were busking on the streets of cities throughout Europe.
CBS Records contracted with Jens and Uwe when Jens was just 17 years old, and shortly thereafter, the Krugers hosted a radio show on SRG SSR, the Swiss Public broadcast group. Several years later, the brothers teamed up with bass player Joel Landsberg, a native of New York City who also had a very extensive musical upbringing in classical and jazz music, including studying with jazz great Milt Hinton. They formed a trio that has been playing together since 1995. Together, they established the incomparable sound that the Kruger Brothers are known for today. The trio moved to the United States in 2002 and is based in Wilkesboro.
Since their formal introduction to American audiences in 1997, the Kruger Brothers’ remarkable discipline and creativity and their ability to infuse classical music into folk have resulted in a unique sound that has made them a fixture within the world of acoustic music. The honesty of their writing has since become a hallmark of the trio’s work.