Like seeds dropping onto rich soil, Sarah Jarosz's songs have always landed where they -- and she -- were most likely to grow.

Just 18, a native of Austin, TX, Jarosz was singing at the age of two, playing piano at six and graduating to the guitar and banjo by 10. By the time she was in her early teens, significant people in the music business began to notice her.

"I first started songwriting when I was about 12 years old," she said in an interview on the Bluegrass Blog. "Ever since, I’ve always put a lot of time and effort into writing as much as possible. I really love it. It’s the best way I can express myself. Nothing compares to the feeling I get when I finish a song. It’s pure bliss."

Jarosz credits her music teacher at Wimberly High School with laying down a solid foundation and an earful of emerging young bluegrass musicians with providing the inspiration.

"I’d say the first experience that made me realize ‘Oh yeah… I definitely want music to play a major role in my life,’" Jasrosz said, "was when I first met Chris Thile at the Old Settler’s Music Festival about 8 years ago. He was playing there with Nickel Creek, and I went up to get his autograph, and he signed my program: ‘Let’s jam sometime.’

Austin runs second only to Nashville as a cauldron of musical forms, and Jarosz grasped as many as she could. While still in elementary school, she began attended a weekl;y bluegrass jam in Wimberly (a small town 40 miles from Austin), and earned the respect and affection of the older musicians by her willingness to learn.

Jarosz was just 16 when she signed with Sugar Hill Records in 2008 and began working with producer Gary Paczosa, who counts John Prine among his other clients. From this collaboratrion emerged "A Song Up In Her Head," Jarosz's first CD. According to one reviewer:

"There is much to celebrate. Jarosz (juh-ROSE) has a fine, supple singing voice, occasionally reminiscent of such disparate artists as Natalie Maines, Patty Griffin, and Rickie Lee Jones. She has a deft writing voice, unusually assured and observant in her debut, and it is more than telling that the album's two covers (the Decemberists' "Shankill Butchers" and the Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan co-write, "Come On Up To The House") fit unobtrusively next to her own eleven songs. And of course she can play: mandolin, clawhammer banjo, guitar, and piano."

Musicians providing backup for Jarosz on thatr CD included Chris Thile and Jerry Douglas. Since then, Jarosz has obviously been adopted by the bluegrass community. This fall, she appeared on Prairie Home Companion with Sam Bush, formerly of New Grass Revival.

“Sarah’s character is as strong as her playing," said Paczosa. "I think that she is the future of acoustic music. Working with her is as exciting as anything I have been involved in. Sarah is going to have an amazing career, and I am thrilled to be a part of it.”

Jarosz is now attending the New England Conservatory of Music, broadening her repertoire, and performing whenever she can.