Tes Slominski is a fiddle player and teacher who specializes in the repertoire and style of Sliabh Luachra, a region in Ireland that includes parts of counties Cork and Kerry. She co-founded the still-thriving Blue Ridge Irish Music School in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1999 and has been on staff as a fiddle teacher at Sean Nós Northwest, the Catskills Irish Arts Week, and the Maoin Cheoíl an Chlár in Ennis, Co. Clare. She is a founding member of the Isteach is Amach queer collective, a group dedicated to building community among LGBTQ+ Irish traditional musicians. Tes holds a Ph.D. in music from New York University and an M.A. in ethnomusicology from the University of Limerick, and authored Trad Nation: Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Irish Traditional Music (Wesleyan University Press, 2020). Along with Kimberly Francis (University of Guelph), Tes is co-editor of the gender/sexuality revision of Oxford University Press’s Grove Music Online. She served as Secretary of the Society for Ethnomusicology’s board from 2019–2021. A Teaching Fellow and then Assistant Professor of music at Beloit College in Wisconsin from 2012–2019, Tes founded and directed the North Atlantic Music Ensemble, which introduced over a hundred undergraduate students to Irish traditional music. In addition to her musical work, she is a life/career/budget coach.

Tes plays a fiddle (violin) of unknown provenance made in the 1880s, possibly in what is now the Czech Republic. She has had it since she was 11, and loves its bright yet deep sound. Over the years, Tes’s fiddle and bow have been lovingly maintained by Artley Violins and Vacanti Violins.

photo credit: Chris Bickford