Chris has been an in-demand multi-instrumental session musician, performer and music educator in the upper Midwest for over three decades—teaching privately, leading music clinics and formerly a staff instructor at Prairie Music & Arts in Sun Prairie, WI.

Chris currently performs as Gaines & Wagoner (vintage jazz, blues and originals) with his wife, Mary Gaines, and with original “class-grass” ensemble, Graminy. Past ensembles include Harmonious Wail (string jazz), The Common Faces (original “folk-soul”), The Moon Gypsies (original Americana/Roots-Rock), The Bob Westfall Band (original new-grass and jazz), and La Boheme String Trio (classical, folk, pop and ragtime). Chris is also a member of backing bands for Randy Sabien, Josh Harty and touring country-western review, “Sweet Dreams and Honky Tonks”.

Studio session credits include Smashing Pumpkins 1991 Platinum-selling “Gish”, 8 albums with Rounder Recording artist, Carrie Newcomer, and tracks on a wide range of other top level folk artists including Willy Porter, Tret Fure, Peter Mulvey and Josh Harty.

Chris studied violin performance in Iowa at Central College with Russell Munneke, at Grinnell College with Kenneth Goldsmith (Mirecourt Trio), and at the UW-Madison with Tyrone Grieve with a focus on jazz improvisation and theory with Richard Davis and Joan Wildman.

In 2009 Chris authored “The Hal Leonard Fiddle Method: Book One” which is currently available in music stores in the US and abroad. 

Discover more about Chris Wagoner at his website
www.gainesandwagoner.com