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, Bill Morrissey, 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 for several years to family music. His five albums for kids garnered many of the top awards in the business, including a 2013 Grammy Nomination for Best Children’s Album, three Parents’ Choice Gold Medals, and the ASCAP Joe Raposo Children’s Music Award.
In 2010, he joined the roster of Young Audiences of Massachusetts where he began to develop social justice assembly programs and workshops 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.
2020 was a major turning point in Alastair’s career. In the winter of that pandemic 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.
Moock went on to co-found The Opening Doors Project, an organization dedicated to amplifying voices of color and advancing interracial conversations about race through the arts. Opening Doors has two main branches of programming: The first is a series of community concerts and conversations, which has featured such national artists as Dom Flemons (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Rissi Palmer, Dan and Claudia Zanes, and Vance Gilbert; the second is a group of educational programs which Moock and his colleagues bring to schools throughout the Northeast and beyond. Opening Doors’ flagship program, “Race and Song: A Musical Conversation” was co-created by Alastair and his friend of nearly 30 years, Reggie Harris. Together, they explore complex issues of race, class, gender, and history, framing their lived experiences through music.
Moock is a charter member of The Folk Collective equity group at historic Club Passim in Harvard Square, a Juried Artist with Music to Life, a co-founder of The Melrose Racial Justice Community Coalition in his hometown outside of Boston, and a recipient of the 2024 Phil Ochs Award. He is also a regular contributor to Boston NPR’s online magazine Cognoscenti, where he writes about music, social justice, and his deepest love of all: basketball.
10/2024