Sergeant First Class Renée Bennett, fiddle, grew up in a musical family in Calvert County, Maryland. She started playing violin with her public school’s music program and went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Professional Music from Berklee College of Music. She has performed nationally and internationally in a diverse range of styles and with such acts as the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Mark O’Connor, The Winter Sounds, Shovels & Rope, Sammy Shelor, The Steeldrivers, and many national symphonies. After moving through three duty stations in six years as a military spouse, she enlisted in the Army out of El Paso, Texas, shipping to Basic Training just ten days after her husband deployed to Iraq. SFC Bennett and her husband, SFC Joey Bennett, both joined Six-String Soldiers in 2017.