A Bluegrass Debutante, A High School Graduate

In the past three weeks, Sarah Jarosz has hit some big milestones. She turned 18. She graduated from high school. And her debut album, Song Up in Her Head, got reviewed in Rolling Stone, where she was dubbed "a contemporary-bluegrass prodigy." Jarosz has been playing mandolin since she was 10. In the years since, she's also picked up banjo and guitar, and become a songwriter. "A lot of the songs on my CD — there's a lot of questions in the lyrics," she says. "And I think that's reflective of my age and the curiosity that I have about everything." She gave a few brief demonstrations of her songs, plus a cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." Jarosz also spoke with host Guy Raz about balancing a career in music and being a teenager. "Many times it would feel as if there were two lives going on," she says. "But sometimes they would coincide with each other — in calculus class." NPR