Rosin the Bow with Joe McHugh

Nadine Landry was born into a musical family in the province of Quebec in Canada. She is a member of the Foghorn Stringband and is married to the band’s fiddler, Stephen “Sammy” Lind. I interviewed Nadine when the band performed at the Oly Old-time Music Festival in Olympia, Washington, in 2015. 

The Rosin the Bow project got its start thanks in large part to bow maker and violin dealer and shop owner Robert Ray in Olympia, Washington. Bob’s fascination with the history of the violin and the art of bow making inspired me to go in search of stories about this remarkable family of instruments and the people who love them. 

Zoe Conway is a gifted young musician living in Ireland. Steeped in the traditional fiddle music of her native land, she is also an accomplished classical violinist. I interviewed Zoe while attending the Clifden Arts Festival that is held each September in a lovely seaside town in Connemara in the west of Ireland. Zoe’s performance of a composition by Bill Whelan with the national RTE Orchestra is one I shall not soon forget.

This podcast features an interview with Bruno Crosignani, director of the office of the Paneveggio Forest that manages the harvesting of tonewood from the Val di Fiemme high up in the Italian Alps. Bruno explains in detail the process of growing, harvesting, and selecting spruce wood for the making of fine musical instruments. This is followed by a tour of Val di Fiemme led by Giuliano Zugliani, head ranger of the Val di Fiemme.

Piera Ciresa is the co-owner of the Ciresa Val di Fiemme, a tonewood company located in the small village of Tesero high up in the Italian Alps. The company provides spruce for violin instruments and piano sound boards that was harvested from the Val di Fiemme, the Valley of the Flame, where the great violin makers of old such as Stradivari, Guarnari, and Amati got their wood. The interview begins in a special park in the town of Cavalese where important political and economic decisions, including the management of the forest, were made by elected representatives of the community going back as far as the Middle Ages. I later toured the factory with Piera and learned about “bearclaw” spruce.

These are two of most highly regarded traditional Irish musicians performing and teaching today. Mick Moloney was born in Ireland and now lives in the United States. Along with being a singer and player of the 4-string banjo and mandolin, he holds a doctorate in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania and regularly takes groups to Ireland to experience first-hand the music and culture of his native land. 

Born in New York City and then spending her childhood in San Francisco, Athena Tergis was classically trained on the violin but later fell in love with Irish and Scottish fiddle music. A former solo fiddler for the Broadway production of Riverdance, she tours with Mick Moloney and other musicians when not tending to her winery with her husband in the hills of Tuscany, Italy.

In this part 2 podcast, husband and wife luthiers Joseph Grubaugh and Sigrun Seifert talk about the importance of varnish in the making of violins and cellos. They also discuss the practice of “antiquing” newly-made instruments, how certain famous violins got their names, and how they came to own a set of chairs used in a Grammy-award-winning recording by the Angeles Quartet.

Joseph Grubaugh and Sigrun Seifert are violin makers living in Petaluma, California. They are also husband and wife and they make almost all of their instruments together. Many gifted musicians play their instruments or have them repair and adjust their instruments. They have also won numerous awards. Is that enough? Well, they also played a central role in recovering a Stradivari violin that went missing decades earlier and was considered stolen.

Alicia is a violinist, composer, and founding member of the Grammy- winning Klezmatics. She collaborated on musical projects with violinist Itzhak Perlman, the Kronos Quartet, playwrights Tony Kushner and Eve Ensler, the late poet Allen Ginsburg, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, among others. When it comes to the Jewish tradition of Klezmer music, Alicia is the person to talk to. 

For more information and to check her calendar visit Alicia's website.