Artist Category: Fiddle | Page 3

Lucy Nelligan

Lucy Nelligan studied classical violin for fifteen years, and more recently has branched out into other styles, including old time, blues, and Nordic folk music. She has toured and performed with a number of groups across the US, including Berklee World strings and the Kronos quartet. She also has performed at a number of venues and festivals in the Northeast, including Club Passim, Caffe Lena, Grey Fox, and Freshgrass.

Hildaland

Orkney (Scotland) born fiddler Louise Bichan and Indiana (USA) mandolinist Ethan Setiawan present a collaboration and meeting of their musical worlds in Hildaland. A path steeped in the fiddle traditions of their respective sides of the Atlantic, the journey taken wends through Scottish, oldtime, and Swedish inspired music intertwined with contemporary compositions. Bichan’s fiddle is a melodic foil to Setiawan’s counterpoint and harmonic depth, and the two weave in and out seamlessly.

Setiawan has won such accolades as the 2014 National Mandolin Championship, the 2017 RockyGrass Mandolin Championship and has shared the stage with the likes of Julian Lage, Darrell Scott, Bryan Sutton, Mike Marshall, Tony Trischka, Darol Anger, Casey Driessen, the Steel Wheels, Don Stiernberg, Matt Flinner, and Jacob Jolliff.

Bichan has won awards for her compositions and playing, and has travelled far and wide to perform in various line ups since a young age. She has appeared at the likes of the BBC TV’s Hogmanay Live show, Edinburgh Castle, Reading Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, Lorient Interceltique Festival, Milwaukee Irish Festival and Sligo Live festival. In 2016 she released her first solo album, Out of My Own Light, to great acclaim.

Gerry O’Connor

One of the great fiddle players of his generation

Gerry O’Connor grew up in the town of Dundalk, County Louth in a family of musicians, dancers and singers. His mother Rose (née O’Brien) taught Gerry and his siblings the fiddle at home and she continued to teach from there for the next 40 years. Students travelling from Armagh and Dublin as well as closer to home to learn from the doyenne of fiddle teachers. His father Peter was a singer whose seven uncles all played music.

From an early age Gerry was involved Irish music and dance, winning numerous All Ireland titles between 1967 and 1973 in a range of formations including duet, trio and four Céili Band titles.

Playing with Michael Coleman’s contemporary John Joe Gardiner in the 1970’s formed Gerry’s style of music, focussing on the fluid and ornamented lyrical fiddle playing of the great Sligo masters. His own background in step dancing translates into vibrant pulsating dance music for which he is noted; today he is regarded as one of the great fiddle players of his generation.

He has played and recorded with such highly-regarded groups as Lá Lúgh (Eithne Ní Uallacháin, Sony Music) and Skylark (Len Graham, Gary O’Briain & Mairtin O’Connor), recording four CDs on the Claddagh label. Gerry has toured and recorded with members of all the legendary groups including Planxty, Bothy Band, De Dannan, Boys of the Lough and Chieftains. Lá Lugh’s album “Brighid’s Kiss” was voted Album of the Year 1996 by readers of the Irish Music Magazine. His solo album “Journeyman” was counted in the top five Albums of the year 2004 by the Irish Times. This critically acclaimed solo album, co-produced with his son Dónal (Ulaid, At First Light), was heralded as a significant milestone in recording the music of the “Oriel” region of South Ulster.

His 2006 live album “In Concert” recorded with Gilles le Bigot (Barzaz, Skolvan) was a celebration of the cultural links between Ireland and Brittany. This duo has toured continually for the last 20 years. During 2006-7 Gerry recorded and toured with The Irish Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Elizabeth Wallfish, recording Ardee Dances, a piece commissioned for Irish Fiddle and Baroque Orchestra and written by Rachel Holstead. Gerry continued to perform with Wallfisch in the Wandering Fiddlers project performing at the Wigmore Hall and the Brighton Early Music Festival.

With Nuala Kennedy, Martin Quinn and Gilles le Bigot, Gerry released the album Oirialla in Nov. 2012 at the Celtic Colours Festival in Cape Breton, Canada. This band is currently touring and in demand for festivals.

Recent re-releases of his music can be heard with Desi Wilkinson and Eithne Ní Uallacháin of the album Cosa Gan Bhróga (Gael Linn) and Senex Puer on IML. With the vocal accapella trio White Raven led by Kathleen Dineen, Gerry has recorded and performed throughout Europe at International Choral Festivals including RheinVocal and Merano. He is currently touring and has recorded 6 albums with much celebrated Irish-Canadian-based group The Irish Rovers.

In 2018 Gerry was awarded “Ceannródaí”, the prestigious Bardic Award by Comhaltas for his valued contribution to the Traditional Arts. In the same year he launched his second solo album “Last Nights Joy” and published ” The Rose in the Gap” Dance Music for Oriel from the Donnellan Collection.

A four-time winner of The Fiddler of Oriel competition, Gerry has recently adjudicated the same competition and also the Gael Linn sponsored Siansa and RAAP /RTE sponsored Breakthrough competitions. He was co-founder and first Artistic Director of Ceol Chairlinn, an annual teaching festival in Carlingford, Co Louth. He is also the Traditional Arts coordinator at the newly established Creative-Connexions Irish/ Catalan Arts festival in Sitges. He teaches fiddle at the Willie Clancy Summer school and at master-classes throughout Europe. When at home Gerry works as a violin maker/restorer.

The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc

From the moment Kevin Henderson, Olav Luksengård Mjelva and Anders Hall of The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc first played together in 2009 they felt a particular chemistry in the sound they created.

Some seven hundred gigs later, playing across Scandinavia, mainland Europe, the U.S. and the UK, that chemistry continues to draw the trio together.

Passion is a word that comes up often in conversation with Henderson, Mjelva and Hall. It’s a word that lies behind the trio’s determination to find exactly the right tunes to play and exactly the right way to play a certain phrase (Henderson has been known to find forty different examples of them playing the same motif stored on his mobile phone from rehearsals). Passion for the music they make is also what makes them endure forty-two-hour flights that should only have taken two – to – three hours to get to a concert rather than let the promoter and audience down.

Hundreds of tunes have been tried and laid aside in The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc’s quest for the music which on two albums, their self-titled debut from 2011 and Deliverance, from 2016, has charmed listeners in the same way that their live performances beguile and satisfy.

In the beginning they were intrigued. For Henderson, who grew up in the fiddle-rich tradition of the Shetland Islands, there was a mystery in hearing his Scandinavian colleagues harmonise with one another. Although Fiddlers’ Bid, the Shetland group he has played with since his teens and continues to work with, create a harmonious, four-fiddle sound, the Swedish tradition of having one fiddle play a melody and another shadowing it with a harmony line, was something new to him.

The jamming sessions that led to the threesome coalescing into a group showed them that they could not only create a unique sound, they also had a richness, helped by their use of standard fiddles, octave fiddle, viola and Hardanger fiddle, that has led to them being likened to a string quartet rather than just a trio.

Folk music promoters and festivals internationally have picked up on the Bloc’s uniqueness. They have played at major events including Tønder Festival in Denmark, Scotland’s mammoth Celtic Connections winter music festival, Cape Breton’s prestigious Celtic Colours, and the annual A Celtic Christmas Sojourn in Boston.

Recognition, including a Norwegian Folk Award and a place in Songlines magazine’s Top of the World selection for their first album, has come their way and as fellow musicians including Dutch jazz violinist Tim Kliphuis invite them to participate in events such as his Rotterdam Fiddle Weekend, the trio have opened their ears to future possibilities in the jazz and classical spheres.

As dedicated tradition bearers, they have also created their own annual fiddle camp, which has taken place in Norway (2018) and Sweden (2019) and is due to visit Shetland next.

“On the evidence to hand, pure fiddle doesn’t get much better than The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc.” Folkworld

Laurel Premo

Laurel Premo is known for her rhythmically deep and rapt delivery of roots music on fiddle, guitar, and vocals. Her solo performances dive deep into traditional and new fiddle music, musically revealing a bloom of underlying harmonic drones, minimalist repetition, and rich polyrhythms. Presenting these sounds on finger style electric guitar and fiddle, Premo fully leans in to the archaic melodies and in-between intonations that connect folk sounds to the mystic and unknown.

She is a Michigan-based artist who has been writing, arranging, and touring since 2009 with vocal and instrumental roots acts, and is internationally known from her duo Red Tail Ring. Premo holds a BFA from the Performing Arts Technology Dept. of the University of Michigan School of Music, and has spent half-year stints at both the Sibelius Academy of Music in Helsinki, Finland and the University College of Southeast Norway in Telemark to study traditional music and dance. Important mentors who have helped shape Laurel’s lens in folk arts have been her parents Bette & Dean Premo (fiddle, guitar, and traditional song, Michigan), Joel Mabus (clawhammer banjo, Michigan), Arto Järvelä (fiddle, Finland), and Ånon Egeland (fiddle, Norway). Alongside several continuing music projects, she is active in organizing community events that connect people with folk art and dance.

The Gaslight Tinkers

African, Caribbean, Funk, Reggae, and Latin grooves meet traditional fiddle music. It’s the genre-bending future of the music of the past. The Gaslight Tinkers’ blend of global rhythms creates a joyously danceable sound around a core of traditional New England old time and Celtic fiddle music, merging boundless positive energy with melody and song. Since its formation in 2012 the band has lit up the East Coast, the West Coast, and the Caribbean, headlining clubs, dances, and major festivals. Playing what The Valley Advocate describes as “Music that consistently fizzes and pops with unexpected textures and turns,” The Gaslight Tinkers’ shows are packed with delightful surprises, elated crowds, and exuberant musicianship.”

Since the band’s formation, they’ve lit up stages and dance floors from the east to west coast and the Caribbean, even debuting on national TV in Trinidad. Independently, Peter Siegel, Garrett Sawyer, I-shea, Joe Fitzpatrick and Emerald Rae have shared stages, played and collaborated with the likes of Pete Seeger, Soca Monarchs of the Caribbean, Noel Paul Stookey of Peter Paul and Mary, The Alchemystics, Alastair Fraser, and other recognized fiddlers around the world. Together, they are a force that will lift your feet and spirits.African, Caribbean, Funk, Reggae, and Latin grooves meet traditional fiddle music and American roots. It’s the genre-bending future of the music of the past.

Maura Shawn Scanlin

Boston-based fiddle player and songwriter Maura Shawn Scanlin is gaining notoriety among the Celtic and Acoustic music scenes across the country. Her playing, hailed for its inventiveness, fluidity, and tone, brings together influences from Ireland, Scotland, and the American South, where she grew up. Touring actively with her duo Rakish and string quartet Rasa String Quartet, Maura has also shared the stage with many cornerstone musicians in the folk music world including Seamus Egan, Maeve Gilchrist, Hanneke Cassel, and Judy Collins. Maura is a 2-time U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion, a Glenfiddich Fiddle Champion, and is touring for the first time under her own name, following the release of her debut full-length solo album, released in May 2023. Her band features Conor Hearn on guitar (Rakish), Adam Hendey on bouzouki (The Fire), and Julian Pinelli on fiddle (Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, The Foreign Landers).

Maura plays an 1872 violin by Asa White, and a Francois Lotte bow.

Ben Wetherbee

Jon Anderson

Jon Anderson started playing old-time music at 7, when his father taught him to play banjo on his “Pete Seeger” model Vega. Since then, he has been an active performer, teacher, and student of Old-Time music, winning awards for his fiddling, and producing an album of traditional Round Peak fiddle and banjo duets with Tom Collins, “Sinful to Flirt” in 2016. Jon has produced an occasional YouTube series, “Bowing Lights for Old-Time Fiddle” using innovative animations to demonstrate the unique motions in southern old-time fiddle bowing. In 2009, Jon was awarded a grant through the State of New Hampshire to study traditional New England fiddle styles with Rodney Miller, comprising old-time, Irish, and French and Anglo Canadian influences.

Frigg

It’s February 2000. The new millennium is taking its first breaths, the fuss and excitement slowly subsides, and the world did not end after all! A group of teenage folk music enthusiasts spend a weekend shut away in Pelimannitalo, a folk music house in Kaustinen – the heart of Finnish folk music. Violins are played, musical thoughts flying about, new songs learned with gusto. A true passion for traditional Nordic music is audible, visible and aglow! The first demo tapes are recorded, and the future is being planned. This group starts calling itself Frigg.

The band’s line-up is established as an ensemble of four violins, string instruments and a double bass. In the spring of 2002, the band’s first album is published, and Frigg is becoming a popular topic of discussion amongst the Nordic folk music circles. As the Nordics become ever smaller, European folk music events quickly become familiar to the band.

Frigg’s pace only accelerates and a hunger for more grows. Their music is living and taking on new directions and nuances. Audiences are in awe of the band’s ability to transport listeners to traditional Finnish polska, bluegrass and Balkan rhythms and all the way to the dynamics of classical music, as if there were multiple groups performing on stage! The tight ensemble performance and a candid stage presence work. Frigg is able to turn their gigs into a scenic experience, giving their listeners a break from the greyness of the world.

Frigg will go on to visit the WOMAD Festival at the invitation of the BBC, visit the Rainforest World Music Festival in the rainforests of Borneo, and tour Japan and Australia. The joyful Nordic folk music laced with Bluegrass is a knockout in North America and one state after the other get their share of Frigg fever. As icing on the cake, Frigg is invited to perform at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival along with the best of the best in Roots music. In addition to their own concerts, the band performs spectacular projects together with symphony orchestras, choirs and brass bands. New music is released at a steady pace, with albums repeatedly appearing in the listings and raving album reviews of fRoots, Songlines, Rhythms.au and numerous other world music portals.

And now, after two decades, ten albums, around a thousand gigs in thirty countries and tens of thousands of kilometers travelled, that same passion still burns. The hypnotic combination of that now-famous violin sound, the irresistible forward-pushing strum of string instruments and the pulse from the double bass, all together continue to create new paths. Just like the steady flow of a mountain stream in the springtime, the origins of which are precisely known.