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Meet Gaelynn Lea, the winner of NPR's 2016 Tiny Desk Contest: Haunting, beautiful music

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And The Winner Of The 2016 Tiny Desk Contest Is ... Gaelynn is a 32-year-old classically trained fiddler whose music is steeped in Celtic tradition and American fiddle tunes. Her fiddle style is shaped by those traditions but also the challenge she has, playing an instrument that is almost as large as she is. Gaelynn was born with brittle bone disease, a congenital disability that makes playing the violin tucked tightly under the chin not a comfortable option. Instead she plays it upright, as a cellist might. In the original tune she submitted, "Someday We'll Linger in the Sun," Gaelynn creates a beautiful droning loop with her JamMan Express loop pedal and after a moody minute begins to sing a yearning tale of life's preciousness and time's constant ticking and why we should always care. "Don't tell me we've got time / the subtle thief of life / it slips away when we pay no mind," she sings in a somewhat childlike and haunting voice. She e