Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas

An exceptional evening of cutting-edge fiddle and cello explorations of Scottish traditional and global music.

“You would think they’d been playing together for centuries. While his fiddle dances, her cello throbs darkly or plucks puckishly… Their sound is as urbane as a Manhattan midnight, and as wild as a Clackmannan winter.” — The Boston Globe

The musical partnership between master Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser and brilliant Californian cellist Natalie Haas spans the full spectrum between intimate chamber music and joyful spontaneity. They have truly set the standard for fiddle and cello in trad music at festivals and halls around the world. The duo’s debut CD, “Fire & Grace,” won the coveted Scots Trad Music “Album of the Year” award, the Scottish equivalent of a Grammy. They continue to thrill audiences everywhere with their virtuosic playing, near-telepathic understanding, and the joyful spontaneity and sheer physical presence of their music.

Fraser has a concert and recording career spanning over 30 years, with a long list of awards, accolades, radio and television credits, and feature performances on top movie soundtracks (Last of the Mohicans, Titanic, etc.). In 2011, he was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame. Haas, a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, is one of the most sought after cellists in traditional music today. She has performed and recorded with a who’s who of the fiddle world including Mark O’Connor, Natalie MacMaster, Irish supergroups Solas and Altan, Liz Carroll, Dirk Powell, Brittany Haas, Darol Anger, Jeremy Kittel, Hanneke Cassel, Laura Cortese, and many more.

This seemingly unlikely pairing of fiddle and cello is the fulfillment of a long-standing musical dream for Fraser. His search eventually led him to find a cellist who could help return the cello to its historical role at the rhythmic heart of Scottish dance music, where it stood for hundreds of years before being relegated to the orchestra. In addition to “Fire & Grace,” the two have gone on to record five more critically acclaimed albums that blend a profound understanding of the Scottish tradition with cutting-edge string explorations. In addition to performing, they both have motivated generations of string players through their teaching at fiddle camps across the globe.