News August 6, 2008

From Arizona,Ireland, Tennesee, Colorado

Darol explains the infamous rhythm chop in 3 minutes.

Lots of teaching residencies coming up this fall. One of the ones I’m most excited about is the Contemporary String Band Workshop, November 13-16,2008 in Fort Worden State Park
in Port Townsend, WA. I’ll teach with Scott Nygaard, Matt Flinner, and Tristan Clarridge. Workshop is limited in size, so check it out early! check it out…String Band Workshop!

Wow, just back from a week at Rockygrass, the premier booteek Bluegrass fester in the States. Lots of fun with The Duo and Psychograss, Bela, John Cowan, Punch Bros, the Fabulous Youths and the rest of the great community that is our String Music Nation. Off to the Grand Targhee Fester next weekend. Gooder photos soon.

PICKATHON 10!!! The tenth anniversary of the big KBOO radio benefit fester, in (otherwise) Boring, Oregon, Aug. 1-3. I was there with Scott Law and Crooked Still. Check www.pickathon.com. It was a great moment, esp. for Bad Livers fans.

Just completed another great Mark O’Connor’s Fiddle Camp & Conference near Nashville, Tennessee, with about 200 other fiddlers and fellow instructors. A convivial & congenial camp, with decent weather, great food & impressive bugs.

yet more 5 string fiddles appear… story at the 5-string fiddle site.

And a couple of very interesting octave violins from Ringholz & Rickert site, who are doing truly amazing and adventurous things with fiddles, including fantastic travel violins… check them out!

Darol played with the Republic Of Strings at the Baltimore Fiddle Fair in Ireland the weekend of May 9th… first trip to Ireland.

R.I.P. Oliver Schroer. Please visit his website.

Psychograss made a rare residency-concert-workshop appearance in the Flagstaff-Sedona area. And at Rockygrass this summer too.

Orbiting the 60th parallel: SWEDEN in march, ALASKA in April. teaching and a big concert in Stockholm with Vasen, the frozen north with Anonymous 4.
soon, a report on the education and big string teaching conventions in Ohio & New Mexico. After I get well!… too much fun, it seems.

Here’s a bit of Sweden:

At the American String Teachers Conference in march in Albuquerque: my discussion panel, “The Resident Weirdo: Alt-Strings in Your Summer Program”: Daryl S, Mark O’Connor, Rachel Barton, Scott Hosfeld.

Wintergrass, up in Tacoma, was an incredible experience, with the Swedish music heroes VASEN coming all the way out from Stockholm to play with The Duo…

Yes, peoples’ lives were changed. That’s the report. Those guys always seem to add 3 or 4 months on to my life when we play together. Unbelievable grooves and air space to take it all in. A joy to fence with violist Mikael Marin…

2 emotional Duo concerts

monumental jams, and a great concert with the Wintergrass Academy, muscling their way through some of my more difficult orchestra charts…

these are some really young kids, but they are motivated, and sound great… thanks to the efforts & inspiration of of Joe Craven and Beth Fortune, co-leaders of the Academy, with help from Renata Bratt, myself, and others.

We hit 2008 with a full-on body slam at top speed, with a Republic Of Strings tour in New England,Some dates with a newly revitalized Anonymous 4 on the west coast, finishing up the first studio Strings For Industry recording, recomposing and recording Acadian music for an amazing documentary on the historic 1948 film
Louisiana Story(with an incredible original score by Aaron Copland contemporary Virgil Thompson).

Kissed off 2007, a year full of mountains, puzzlements, torment and blistering musical highs. StringNation, Telluride, Grand Targhee, High Sierra, The Northwest String Summit. Fiddle Camp, music teacher conventions, festivals, new recordings, new bands and old friends Amazing younger players. Beloved older players passing (remembering Johnny Frigo). Looks like changes ahead in every area.

The New Years’ Long Weekend was a busy one for me, playing the 29th and 30 with those amazing Yonder Guys at the Denver Fillmore and then racing back home on New Years’ Eve to play a deleriously jammed show here in Portland at The Wonder Ballroom with Strings For Industry, the Everyone Orchestra, and the Freak Mountain Ramblers. A real home-grown show. pix very soon! Dragons!

View a video of Darol chopping and talking.

We have so much new stuff at the store, please check it out. AND now that we have a big repertoire of downloadable tunes, we’ve been able to drop the price of each tune to pretty much the going rate; $1.00.

Darol’s new instructional bluegrass fiddle playalong book & CD.

Find it here.

A 5-string fiddle website!.

The Tunes of the Month section is a real music download site now. We’ve put together a selection of Darol’s music from live shows, out-of print rarities, and brand-new music unavailable anywhere else. Welcome, for better or worse, to the future of music distribution… we’ll try to keep the better parts. Our Store features Internet Shopping Carts, so orders are easy and fast. You can use your credit card. And new stuff is always appearing, such as:

The hit DVD Chops And Grooves is available here.

The return of a big hit! Drone tracks in all keys, to practice intonation and anything else with, on your fiddle, viola, cello, whatever. No actual fiddle content!… but it makes a fantastic gift. the Tune, sort of, of the Month.

More of everything: more music downloads, and more historical pictures in the reorganized Photo Gallery.

What is the Republic Of Strings?

It’s a nation of string musicians and music listeners, tied together by mutual respect and love of music.

Our shared Republic Of Strings’ imaginary borders extend through all geographical or other imaginary borders, and we accept no unsightly cultural boundaries. We revel in variety and seek to deeply understand.

Our band, The Republic Of Strings, chooses string band music and other music that we love, from anywhere in the world, and figures out a way to play it.

Our musical material ranges from Scandinavia down to Africa and Brazil, with stops anywhere from the Appalachian mountains to the far-off isle of Manhattan, Ireland, Chicago, suggestions from our fellow citizens, and our garage.

Lots of questions about the Baritone Violin or whatever it is, lately. Go to my Baritone Violin page, or to the Carlene Hutchins site.

More inanity, insanity and misgovernance. But hope springs up again. Can music get us through? Not all by itself.

What has happened:

2007 for me will be known as the Year It Rained 5-String Fiddles. Somehow I acquired 3 excellent 5 string violins, in 3 different price ranges! This startling development has prompted me to start a NEW WEBSITE devoted to 5-string violins and violas in general, with photos, links, and eventually videos and sound files. Check the new 5-string site and the Forum page for information on these amazing new fiddles.

A Darol & Mike DUO tour, and another new CD.

The rumors are true: An incredible collaboration between The Duo and the amazing Swedish group Vasen, available NOW at this website and from Adventure Music.com.

The DUO played shows in the southeast US in October and in California in December, focusing on the new Woodshop and featuring the Woodshop Orchestra, with the Clarridges, Wes Corbett, Simon Chrisman, and Bryn Davies supplying the orchestral sounds.

Darol and Mike’s brand new release Woodshop, on Adventure records, was featured with a review at CDbaby.com from June 19-21. Get it here at the Store.

…While the spirit of the album circles around atmospheric composition, blending the bright, acoustic clarity of country folk and bluegrass, their jazzy harmonies give a ever-expanding sense of landscape to these 14 viscerally-generous tracks. Zooming in beautifully on a particular sentiment, letting the instruments be unbound from designated song form, crafting incredible builds and emotional crescendos, and letting the music unfold from mood rather than by a top-down concept, these two masters have more than realized their emotional objective, leaving us with an unforgettable treasure. CDBABY.com

STRINGNATION!!!!

Summer has settled in the Pacific Northwest with unprecedented pleasant weather. flowers, leaves, big trees are everywhere…

I headed to Telluride to play with El Giant Ones (Bela, Jerry, Sam, Edgar) and then Fiddle Camp, then some great festers with my new jam band Strings For Industry… all this after having completed a big tour around the east with the Republic Of Strings,the Anonymous 4, and Scott Nygaard, ending with the unbelievable, fantastic StringNation festival on May 11-12. A historic meeting of some very interesting minds!

Also had a great Portland concert and live recording session at the famed Mississippi Studios for my new electric groove band Strings For Industry, some exciting and inspiring times at the American String Teachers’ convention in Detroit in March, (see the Teaching page), and in April with Yonder Mountain, with the Republic Of Strings, and at the local grocery store.

The StringNation Festival: see below. I think we’re going to need a special page for this one. Up soon.

Fun times at the Telluride Festival, with the House Band: DA, BF, EM, SB, JD, BS.

(photo by Chris Jake.)

Fun times at Fiddle Camp:

(photo by Wayne Smith.)

The Republic Of Strings had a busy year of shows and a recording release. February and March at home, visiting with musical friends touring through the Rose City, playing the occasional show with local friends, I’m off the road except for occasional concerts with ROS, and ASTA convention, and guestage, like a short run with Yonder Mountain in the SE in February..