Brendan Forrest
“..An Americana gem that beautifully blends traditional roots with modern storytelling..” - Little Gardens
Brendan Forrest is a Southwest Colorado-based Folk/Americana/Bluegrass artist whose music draws on bluegrass, folk, Celtic tradition, and Americana without neatly fitting into any one lane. Born into an Irish-American family on Chicago’s North Side, Forrest writes songs shaped by movement, memory, place, and tradition — from city streets and mountain towns to long stretches abroad.
His upcoming single, “Amabel Lee,” featuring GRAMMY-winning fiddler Michael Cleveland and GRAMMY-winning mandolinist Dominick Leslie, continues that path with a story-driven acoustic ballad rooted in chance, connection, and string-band craftsmanship.
Forrest’s musical life started early. He began on the highland bagpipe at age ten, surrounded by a family culture of violin, upright bass, and acoustic guitar. Guitar eventually became his focus and over the next two decades, he followed it through rock bands, jazz studies, songwriting, production work, and eventually back toward the acoustic music that had always been in the background.
He studied music in Chicago, where he developed a strong foundation in jazz while continuing to explore bluegrass, Celtic traditions, and American roots music. Later, time spent in Spain, France, South Africa, and elsewhere broadened his musical frame of reference and left a lasting imprint on his playing and songwriting. Those global influences — African guitar, Django-inspired swing, flamenco, Celtic melody, and American roots music — continue to shape the openness and movement in his sound.
For a number of years, Forrest worked primarily as a producer and collaborator, building a body of work that moved across genre lines. During that period, he won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and was recognized twice through the City of Chicago Individual Artists Program. He also collaborated with artists including Penelope Antena, Woody Goss, and Denmark Vessey, developing a reputation for versatility, curiosity, and a willingness to follow the music wherever it led.
A difficult personal chapter beginning in 2015 marked a turning point in Forrest’s writing. In the years that followed, his songs became more stripped-down, emotionally direct, and rooted in lived experience — shaped by loss, movement, recovery, and the search for something more grounded.
By 2019, while living alone in Paris, Forrest had begun writing the material that would shape his return to American roots music. The hybrid and producer-driven instincts of his earlier years did not disappear, but they began giving way to something simpler and more direct: acoustic instruments, story songs, and arrangements that left more room for feeling.
That shift first came into focus on Oihana, recorded during the COVID pandemic at his family home with trio mates Patrik Alhberg and Andrew Vogt and captured in a live, single-night session by GRAMMY-nominated engineer Andy Shoemaker. Across nine original compositions, the album marked Forrest’s first fully acoustic statement and clarified the direction his music had been moving toward all along.
In 2020, Forrest bought two acres in San Miguel County and moved to Norwood, Colorado. The relocation changed both his pace of life and his writing. Leaving Chicago for the high desert gave him a quieter environment and a different kind of perspective. The landscape began to show up in the work — not just visually, but structurally, in the space and patience of the songs themselves.
That Colorado chapter sharpened further with The Brooklyn Session in 2024, a two-track collaboration with longtime friend Duncan Wickel of Rising Appalachia. Recorded in Wickel’s Brooklyn home studio, the EP is spare, warm, and unforced — the sound of two musicians with a long history finding their way into the same room again. It also served as an early marker of Forrest’s renewed direction under his full name.
Later that year, Daydreaming Music Fiend was released on September 27, 2024. Recorded in Nashville at the home studio of IBMA-winning guitarist Jake Stargel, the album became Forrest’s debut full-length release under the Brendan Forrest name and his clearest statement yet as a songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader. Featuring GRAMMY-winner Dominick Leslie and IBMA-winners George Jackson and Jake Stargel, the record brings together instrumental pieces and songs shaped by Chicago blues, Irish and Celtic influences, bluegrass, folk, and a touch of psychedelic looseness.
His latest full-length release, Songs from San Miguel, Vol. 1, arrived on November 14, 2025. The 13-track collection was recorded and self-produced in a DIY setting, with support from Telluride Arts. Rooted in folk songwriting and shaped by the spirit of San Miguel County, the album reflects Forrest’s Colorado years in a direct way—raw, less polished, more spacious, and comfortable —letting the songs speak for themselves. The project earned him a 2025 Telluride Arts Grant, and he was named a 2026 Telluride Arts Grantee again for the forthcoming Vol. 2. He is also a Lone Cone Legacy Trust grantee for a collaborative project with Roudy Roudebush.
The next chapter continues with “Amabel Lee,” an upcoming single set for release in summer 2026. Featuring GRAMMY-winning fiddler Michael Cleveland and GRAMMY-winning mandolinist Dominick Leslie, the track deepens Forrest’s commitment to string-band craftsmanship while keeping the emotional core of his recent work intact. Inspired by a real-life encounter at his remote Colorado homestead, “Amabel Lee” blends intimate storytelling with world-class acoustic musicianship.
Over a career spanning more than 20 years and 4 continents, Forrest has worked as a performer, collaborator, mentor, and teacher. In spring 2023, he joined The Bluegrass Journeymen, a nonprofit cultural education initiative devoted to expanding the reach of bluegrass internationally. Through that work, he toured and taught across northeast India, with performances and workshops in New Delhi, Sikkim, Pakyong, Kalimpong, and Kolkata.
Outside music, Forrest is also a painter, poet, and longtime visual artist. That sensibility carries into the songs — not in a heavy-handed way, but in the attention to detail, pacing, and atmosphere. Whether solo or backed by a small circle of accomplished players, Brendan Forrest makes music that feels informed by tradition but not limited by it: thoughtful, well-traveled, and unmistakably personal.