Lisa Gutkin has crafted a courageously varied artistic career by bringing an instantly relatable style to audiences through her theater, music, and storytelling. A masterful Grammy Award-winning violinist, singer/songwriter, actor, and composer, Lisa has an uncanny way of taking those audiences with her wherever she goes.

Recognized for her work as violinist and vocalist for the ground breaking Jewish Roots band,  The Klezmatics, and as fiddler for the “Downtown” Celtic band Whirligig, Lisa is also known for her scoring, performance, and music direction in the two time Tony award-winning play, Indecent. She had an on-screen cameo and compositions featured in Sex and the City; has performed in Sting’s Broadway musical  The Last Ship; and her song Gonna Get Through This World - with words by Woody Guthrie - was hailed by Pete Seeger, as “a piece of genius. Lisa’s playing and stories are fun and poignant, and her voice has been praised by the LA Times as “hauntingly emotional.”   

In addition to Woody Guthrie, Lisa has co-authored songs with Anne Sexton, and Maggie Dubris, and created scores for symphony orchestras and short films including Pearl Gluck’s Write Me, and Amy Guggenheim’s Blindsight. Her composing commissions include the Mabou Mines’ multi-genre folk opera: Song For New York: What Women Do While Men Sit Knitting. 

A MacDowell and Norton Stevens Fellow, Lisa has recorded seven CD’s with The Klezmatics, four with Whirligig (with Lúnasa’s Cillian Vallely and Daisycutter’s Greg Anderson) and is co- producer of the Indecent Original Broadway Cast Recording. As a freelancer Lisa appears on hundreds of recordings with countless luminaries. Inspired by these, Lisa released a CD of her own songs, produced by John Lissauer titled From Here On In. 

Lisa plays one of the earliest Samuel Zygmuntowicz violins with one of the earliest Michael Yeats bows, and uses an LR Baggs pick up system.