Jeremy Penner

Jeremy started out playing Suzuki Classical Violin at age four. He quit at age 12 when the games of "kick-the-can" outside in the street became too irresistible, but got pulled back in again at age 15, jamming Jimi Hendrix tunes with newly-made friends in High School. At 16, Jeremy met Leonard Podolak at a warehouse party, and together with a few other Winnipeggers they started the Celtic and old-time influenced band "Scruj MacDuhk". The next six years saw them tour all over North America and appear at the prestigious Tonder Festival in Denmark. Scruj MacDuhk produced a few recordings, the last being "The Road To Canso", which won a Prairie Music Award and was nominated for a Juno Award (Canadian Grammy). The band broke up in 2001, at which point Leonard went on to form "The Duhks", a highly-acclaimed roots group based out of Winnipeg, and Ruth Moody, lead singer of Scruj MacDuhk for four years, helped form "The Wailin' Jennys", a Juno-award winning group made up of three female singer-songwriters. Following the break-up of "Scruj" Jeremy helped form a side-project called "Moody Penner and Swain" with Ruth and and another former members of Scruj MacDuhk, Oliver Swain. In 2003, following the wrap-up of "MPS" touring, Jeremy joined the Victoria, BC based folk group "The Bills". With The Bills, Jeremy played on the Juno-nominated album "Let 'Em Run" and toured all over North America, England, Scotland and Denmark. In the spring of 2005, Jeremy decided to leave the band to pursue other interests. From the spring of 2005 until the summer of 2006, Jeremy studied improvisation in both jazz and bluegrass contexts with Casey Driessen in Nashville, Matt Glaser in Boston, and Stephane Allard in Montreal, through a grant provided by the Canada Council for the Arts. Jeremy is now touring with The Wailin' Jennys (including his old band-mate, Ruth!), playing fiddle and mandolin. Jeremy has now moved back to Winnipeg!!