Rosin the Bow with Joe McHugh

Vermont-born fiddler and songwriter Pete Sutherland has been a mainstay of the old-time music scene for many years. I first met Pete in the early 1980s when we both served on the faculty of the Augusta Heritage Program in Elkins, WV. I later caught up with him at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, WA, where we sat down for a chat about the instrument and music we love.

In this second part of the conversation I had with Eric Funk, he talks about the inspiration and creative process behind his concerto A Violin Alone in which a solo violinist not only plays the part of the violin but uses his instrument to mimic all the other instruments in the orchestra. And there is more philosophy as well concerning the special role music plays in our lives.

While attending a wedding in Bozeman, Montana, I had the good fortune to interview Eric Funk, musician, conductor, and celebrated composer. Eric is also a professor of music at Montana State University and hosts an Emmy award-winning music and culture program for Montana Public Television.

David Balakrishnan is a gifted violinist and founding member of the Turtle Island String Quartet. He is also a composer who draws upon a variety of musical traditions to create works that are both fresh and enduring. I recorded this interview at his home in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015.

Aaron Allen is a professor of musicology and environmental studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In this podcast, he looks at the impact instrument making and cultural assumptions about music impact the natural world, the trees, animals, and minerals that make musical instruments possible.

Michael Gray is a violinist and composer living in the Pacific Northwest who has performed with the gypsy-jazz inspired combo Pearl Django for many years. I interviewed Michael in 2015 at the Wintergrass Music Festival.

Eugene Friesen is a cellist who has performed as a member of the Paul Winter Consort for many years often exploring the musical possibilities of playing inside sacred spaces such as the Grand Canyon and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine or accompanying animals such as whales and wolves. A four-time Grammy award-winner, he teaches at the Berklee School of Music in Boston where I interviewed him in 2017.

Husband and wife duo Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy are award-winning Canadian fiddle players. Natalie grew up on Cape Breton Island and Donnell grew up in Ontario. They have seven children and, when not out on tour, they work on their cattle ranch. I interviewed Natalie and Donnell when they came to perform at the Washington Center for the Arts.

Michael Cleveland was born blind but he fell in love with the violin as a young child when he heard a recording of the fiddle tune Orange Blossom Special. “I want to play that,” he told himself and, with the help of his parents and teachers at a school for the blind, that’s exactly what he did, and a whole bunch of other tunes as well. Named fiddler of the year six times in a row by the International Bluegrass Music Association, Michael performs with his group Flamekeeper. I interviewed Michael while attending the Hiawatha Traditional Music Festival in Marquette, Michigan, in 2018. 

Fine violins and cellos are more than musical instruments; they are also visual works of art. They exist in the visual art world in other ways as well. In 2015, I visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where I was given a tour of the collection by Stephen Ackert, former curator of music, and Bruno Nasta, a jazz violinist who organizes the concert series that takes place each year inside the National Gallery. Stephen and Bruno showed me a number of paintings from antiquity to the 1840s in which a violin-style instrument played a significant part. Join me for this illuminating walk-about in one of our nation’s premier art museums.

To see paintings talked about in the podcast 

https://www.rosinthebow.org/national-gallery.html