Chicagoan Liz Carroll is an Irish-American musician whose album Double Play, recorded with John Doyle, was nominated for a Grammy in 2010. She is the first American-born traditional Irish musician to be nominated for the award. This is the latest of many accolades in Carroll’s prestigious career. At 17, she won the Junior All-Ireland championship on the fiddle. The following year, she won the championship for the Senior category. She was awarded the National Heritage Award Fellowship in 1994, and this year was named The Gradam Ceoil Traditional Composer of the Year by TG4, Ireland’s Irish Language station, making her the first American-born composer to be so named.

Throughout her career, she has played solo and with the groups Greenfields of America, Trian, String Sisters, and as part of the duo Liz Carroll & John Doyle. Carroll’s parents emigrated from County Offaly and County Limerick to Chicago, making Liz a first-generation Irish American. In 2010, she was named one of the 50 Most Influential Women by the Irish Voice and she previously made Irish America’s Top 100 list in 2005.