David Stenshoel

David Stenshoel plays violin, tenor sax, and electric mandolin with Boiled in Lead, as well as other Minneapolis groups, including Honeysuckle Rose, Voices of Sepharad, Saharan Nights, Robayat, and SunPlug'd. He occasionally plays with groups such as Cafe Accordion Orchestra and Papa John Kolstad's Hot Club of East Lake Street.

His day job is in the Access Services Department of the Minneapolis Public Library. Stenshoel was born in Springfield, Illinois, on January 5, 1950. Growing up in Colorado and South Dakota, he moved with his family to Minnesota in 1965, attending Hopkins High School and St. Olaf College, playing violin in those school orchestras. He studied violin with Edward Horak, a member of Cliff Brunzell's Golden Strings. In the early 1970's he played in a group called Sky King with his brother Peter Stenshoel (keyboards), Mark Freeman, later of Red House and NNB fame (guitar), and Steve Almaas, later of the Suicide Commandos and Beat Rodeo (bass). In 1975, David and fellow fiddler Mike "Raz" Russell joined guitarists Frank Boyle and Al Butler, bassist John Hanson and drummer Ron Hanson, in a western swing band called the Radio Rangers. In 1983, he joined Boiled in Lead, which at that time featured Drew Miller on bass, Jane Dauphin on guitar, and Brian Fox on fiddle. Other groups Stenshoel has played with include the Ethnic Dance Theater Orchestra, Crossing Borders, Imp Ork, Electric Arab Orchestra, Yiddishe Folksmenshn, Shalita, Layalli Sharque, Abtew Kebede and Boran Band, Auto-Matix, Dusty Drapes and the Dusters, Flying Ace, Infinity Art Unit, Intuitive Bikers, Jan Reimer Band, Jim Goodrich Band, Quarterhorse, Radio Kings, Shambala, Swing City, Topaz, and You, Me, and Betsy.