Chris Talley Armstrong has been picking the banjo since she was 13 years old. She started on the harmonica when she was only 5 years old, and just couldn't get enough music! She currently plays over 20 instruments. She is well-known locally for her performances on banjo and fiddle with The Chris Talley Trio, and local and state fiddle and banjo contests. She sings lead, tenor and baritone.
Chris has won numerous banjo and fiddle contests, including the Illinois State Fair and ITCMA Illinois State Championships on both Banjo and Fiddle. In fact, she won her first ITCMA Illinois State Banjo Championship when she was just 14 years old. She also won SPGMA's Most Promising Banjo Player 16 and Under.
In addition to playing, Chris also composes music and teaches. Several of her original tunes can be heard on the band's three CDs and on radio stations locally and nationally. Her students are now "making their own waves" teaching, winning state and local contests, and composing their own music. Student Justin Robbins won the 2005 Illinois State Fair Junior Banjo Championship, and he and his twin sister Jenny (who plays fiddle) have been teaching their own students for the past several years.
"My favorite performance would have to be the Red Clay Bluegrass Festival in the Village of Tignish, Prince Edward Island, Canada. We [the band] performed there in the summer of 2004, and we are still talking about it!" Some of Chris' other performances include a banjo duet with Alan Munde and Joe Carr at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas; the Sheldon Theatre in St. Louis; playing with Charlie Louvin at the Louvin Brothers Museum in Nashville; a featured trio on a float in the St. Louis VP Fair Parade every year since 2002; and playing back stage at the Grand Ol' Opry. "Charlie Louvin took us backstage for our honeymoon. We passed by one of the dressing rooms and I saw Bobby Hicks' in there with his fiddle. It was a 5-string fiddle and the peghead was carved. When I asked to look at it, he asked me if I wanted to play it."
The Chris Talley Trio has produced three CDs since its inception in 2000, and Chris has produced several of her own instructional CDs for banjo and fiddle, which can be found at www.LearnBluegrass.com. She teaches privately in her home, and workshops locally and nationally at various bluegrass festivals and events.