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ABOUT JB

"He's a good mandolin player."
-Frank Wakefield     

"Jean-Baptiste Cardineau is heralding a new and deeper version of bluegrass to a new generation"- Matt Glaser

Jean-Baptiste Cardineau (he/him) is a Franco-American mandolin player, singer and songwriter who manifests his unique musical and lyrical vision via a well-spring of various early styles of music. His instant-classic "Nouveau-Traditional" style has already brought him on some of the worlds biggest stages including Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Rockygrass, Thomas Point Bluegrass Festival and Joe Val Bluegrass Festival. He is nominated for 2026 International Bluegrass Music Association's Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year award and won 1st place in the 2025 Freshgrass Awards in mandolin. In 2025 he won PSB Records' Songwriting for Social Protest Contest and Berklee's Songwriting for Social Change Contest. In 2022 his heavy picking artillery got him a presidential scholarship to Berklee College of Music where he studied Jazz, Classical music, and various ethnic styles while his spontaneous Bluegrass playing became synthesized with the early innovators on the mandolin through his singular voice.​​

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In JB's words, he comes from "the great state of confusion"; A citizen of France and the United States, his family moved thirteen times before he was eighteen years old. Some of the places he lived include the French alps, the California Bay Area, Colorado's Front Range, Montreal, Quebec, and the Texas Hill Country. He currently makes his home in Boston, Massachusetts after recently graduating from Berklee. He started playing fingerstyle guitar at eight years old prior to moving to the States in 2017, where he picked up his grandmother's 200 year old Breton mandolin and learned of the lineage of mandolin players in his family. With a musical and lyrical vision, his voracious desire to find the Cardineau sound is the driving force behind his musical modus operandi. 

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Lessons

Jean-Baptiste offers lessons in mandolin, guitar, and songwriting in a variety of styles and at all levels. JB has years of experience studying, teaching, and performing music internationally. His teaching philosophy is rooted in developing technique through intuitive and informed improvisational study. His teaching is also centred around cultivating the skills to thrive in ensemble settings.

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For more information about private lessons (online or in the Boston area), inquiries about workshops, festivals and camps, or other teaching opportunities:

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Send me an email - Thanks!

Get in touch!

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