In a Nutshell

Alastair Moock started performing in 1995, moving from his home outside New York City to the folk haven of Boston, Massachusetts. After working his way up through the local coffeehouse and club circuit, he began touring the U.S. and Europe, eventually graduating to renowned events like the Newport Folk Festival and Norway’s Bergen Music Fest and opening for national acts like Arlo Guthrie, Taj Mahal, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and Greg Brown. In 2007 he was nominated for a Boston Music Award for Outstanding Singer-Songwriter of the Year. The Boston Globe called him “one of the town’s best and most adventurous songwriters” and The Washington Post declared “every song a gem.”

When Moock’s twins were born in 2006, he turned his focus to family music. His five family albums have garnered many of the top awards in American children’s music, including a 2013 Grammy Nomination, three Parents’ Choice Gold Medals, and ASCAP’s Joe Raposo Children’s Music Award.

In 2010, Moock joined the roster of Young Audiences of Massachusetts where he began to develop social justice programs for students of all ages. The programs demonstrate how protest movements throughout American history, including the labor rights, Civil Rights, and anti-Vietnam war movements, have used music as a tool for change. In 2020, Moock and folk music legend Reggie Harris co-created a racial justice program called “Race and Song: A Musical Conversation.” Building on their years’ long (interracial) friendship, the two delve deeply into personal and social histories around identity, using both historical and original music to welcome in audiences of all ages.

2020 was a major turning point in Alastair’s career in other ways as well. In the winter of that year, he co-founded Family Music Forward, a national racial justice organization working to amplify Black voices in the children’s music space. When, a few months later, he received a second Grammy nod for Best Children’s Album—alongside four other white artists—he chose to respectfully decline the nomination, citing historical under-representation in the category.

The following year, Moock co-founded The Opening Doors Project, a volunteer organization with a mission to amplify voices of color and advance conversations about race through the arts. Created during the pandemic, the project began with a series of online interviews and performances with artists of color and others doing antiracist work through their art. Guests included Dom Flemons (of The Carolina Chocolate Drops), Dan and Claudia Zanes, Vance Gilbert and many more. Since the end of the pandemic, Opening Doors has shifted into live performances and conversations, with artists like Zakiyyah, Sol y Canto, Pamela Means, Kemp Harris, and others.

Moock is a charter member of The Folk Collective equity group at historic Club Passim in Harvard Square, a co-founder of The Melrose Racial Justice Community Coalition in his hometown outside of Boston, and a regular contributor to Boston NPR’s online magazine Cognoscenti on issues of racial and social justice (and basketball!).

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