full bio

Inspired by the records her parents played in her childhood home in Washington D.C., Liv Greene’s passion for songs started in early childhood. That passion took off the moment she taught herself her first guitar chords at age 12. Records like Patty Griffin’s Living With Ghosts, Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs, and the catalogs of Emmylou Harris and Alison Krauss led Greene down the path of both the musician and the woman she wanted to be.

Storytelling moved her, and Greene wanted to command a room like the great women she grew up listening to had. In her freshman year in high school, her parents told her they’d send her to a songwriting camp if she could find one under $900. Greene discovered Miles of Music Camp, an all-ages camp that described itself as a “creative crossroads between timeless traditional music and modern songwriting” Greene says, “I remember that week so clearly, the fiddle tunes, the incredible songs, the real-life professional musicians who were larger than life to me, and yet, just ordinary people.” Miles of Music Camp introduced her to Americana, old-time, and bluegrass and connected her with young people with similar interests. Deeply inspired, at 15-years-old she made the decision to be a musician then and there. This commitment led her in her senior year to Interlochen Arts Academy in northern Michigan for songwriting. She graduated in 2016 with honors, a Fine Arts Award in songwriting, a 2016 YoungArts Finalist in voice/singer-songwriter, and the songwriting department’s Artist of the Year Award.

This was just the prelude to her budding career as the musician she set out to be. Chosen from over 700 applicants, in 2019, Greene won the Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Folk Competition for Emerging Singer-Songwriters after competing among 32 finalists. That same year she was also selected to participate in the Savannah Music Festival’s Acoustic Music Seminar and named the first alternate in the Telluride Bluegrass Festival Troubadour Contest for songwriters.

Now 22, Greene gives back to her musical community in the way others had for her. She teaches songwriting and guitar through private lessons and has taught in classroom settings at the Passim School of Music and Interlochen Arts Camp’s songwriting program. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has enjoyed teaching even more, and even co-founded a virtual weekend music camp called Inside Voices Music Camp, centered around nurturing one’s inner creative spark during these isolated times.

While educating others she remains committed to educating herself. She’s still immersed in the New England Folk scene where her involvement started with festivals and camps in high school. It was that community that influenced her decision to study music in the heart of New England’s vibrant folk scene, at New England Conservatory in Boston, where she recently graduated from the prestigious Contemporary Improvisation program, a program that has fostered other Americana artists like Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan. And while Boston’s venues are shuttered due to COVID-19, Greene remains a vital voice in the New England Folk fold, with a record that captures the coming-of-age she experienced in it.