“NO PIG – NO GIG” was a joke attributed to celebrated fiddler, mandolinist and Minnesota music legend Peter Ostroushko.
Known as a gifted, generous and kind musical whiz, he was the guy who would roll up his sleeves to pitch in and make travel arrangements for the band and find the best barbecue in any given location.
Ostroushko was an original member and regular on NPR’s long-running fan favorite A Prairie Home Companion radio show with Garrison Keillor. He came through our speakers for 40 years on the program and served as its music director for a time.
In late 1986, Ostroushko formed the "Lake Woebegone Municipal Mandolin Orchestra" for a tour with Keillor and the cast of A Prairie Home Companion.
Ostroushko was in high demand as a master musician. He’s often the unsung hero of many soundtracks you may know, without even knowing his name.
He’s the mandolin player on Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks album, and on Ken Burns’ documentaries about Lewis and Clark and Mark Twain. He even appeared on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.
Ostroushko said on his website that he picked up his father’s mandolin at age 3 and never looked back. He grew up a student of the well-known Minneapolis folk and blues scene and used to go stand in the doorway of the Triangle Bar, saying, “For me that was like going to church, standing out there, listening to these guys play music.”
Players in the folk and blues scenes knew Ostroushko well and collaborated with him regularly, from Robin and Linda Williams, Norman Blake and Chet Atkins to Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and John Hartford.
A stroke in 2018 left him unable to play, but he liked to listen to tapes of himself and his friends playing, and would always remember the triumph of a friend doing a difficult musical passage well.
Ostroushko had recently been producing a podcast, “My Life and Time as a Radio Musician.”
