Dede Wyland’s pure and compelling voice has enchanted audiences around the globe, and her driving rhythm guitar has powered the sound of many a bluegrass band, including the internationally acclaimed New York City-based group Tony Trischka and Skyline. A feature article in Bluegrass Unlimited magazine said that Dede’s “gifts of vocal virtuosity, musical expression, and sheer positive force of personality have made her a valued presence in modern acoustic music.”

A native of Wisconsin, Dede Wyland honed her bluegrass skills from 1975 through 1979 playing throughout the Midwest and Central states with the Milwaukee-based band ’Grass, Food & Lodging. She then moved to New York City, where she became a founding member of Tony Trischka and Skyline, one of the leading progressive bluegrass groups of the 1980’s. She toured internationally with Skyline through the ’80s. During those years her clear, powerful voice made her a perennial nominee in the annual awards poll of the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America. As one of the few women at the time who was performing in a high-profile touring bluegrass band, Dede was a role model and an artistic influence for a generation of female bluegrass musicians who would shape the music in the years to come.

After leaving Skyline in 1987, Dede moved to Tucson, Arizona, and then to the Washington-Baltimore area in 1990, performing regionally as well as establishing herself as a sought-after vocal coach. Aside from her private students, she also teaches workshops and music camps around the country and abroad. 

Since 1999, Dede’s singing has won her 11 Bluegrass Singer of the Year Awards from the Washington Area Music Association.

Her two solo recordings, Urge for Going and Keep the Light On, can be found on The Patuxent Music label.

Dede’s career is the subject of its own chapter in Murphy Hicks Henry’s 2013 book Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass (University of Illinois Press.)