I interviewed James Kelly at the National Folklore Festival in 2015 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Mr. Kelly was born and grew up in Ireland and is no...View Details

The interviews I conducted with musicians, luthiers, museum curators, tone wood experts and others for the Rosin the Bow project took place before the...View Details

Penny Brill is an accomplished violist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. She has also led an effort to bring the healing power of music to hospi...View Details

Hans Johannsson is a violin maker from Iceland. David Fulton is a noted collector of old Italian violins, violas, and cellos. I met and interviewed Ha...View Details

Anyone familiar with what is called "old-time" music knows the name Bruce Molsky. As a fiddler, singer, and guitar and banjo player, he has helped kee...View Details

Lyris is the former head of marketing for orchestral strings for the D'Addario Musical Strings Company. She is also an accomplished violinist who play...View Details

This is the second part of my conversation with Winifred Horan, fiddler with the Irish musical group Solas, during which she talks about her Jonathan ...View Details

I interviewed Winifred Horan when she came to perform with the Irish musical group Solas at the Wintergrass Music Festival in Bellevue, Washington, in...View Details

In part two of my conversation with Gregg Alf, we talk about the day to day life of the violin maker, including the harvesting of tone wood, and what ...View Details

In 2015, Paula and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary by visiting the city of Venice. While there, we had the pleasure of meeting and interview...View Details

Joshua Bell is one of the most respected solo violinists in the world today. He also serves as the music director of the Academy of Saint Martin in th...View Details

Tom Barr was one of the first people I interviewed for the Rosin the Bow project. He grew up in Grayson County in the mountains of southwestern Virgin...View Details

In part 2 of my interview with Mr. Canin, he talks about his career in music including auditioning for the San Francisco Symphony and playing for moti...View Details

Stuart Canin is one of the most respected violinists in the world today. I interviewed the 91 year old Mr. Canin at his home in Berkeley, California. ...View Details

Chris Haddox is a fiddler, luthier, and professor of environmental studies and West Virginia University. He is also the owner of a violin made in the ...View Details

In the spring of 2015, Paula and I visited Florence, Italy, to interview a family of violin makers. Paolo Vettori is the patriarch of the family who l...View Details

In 2016 I visited Greensboro, North Carolina, to interview Russian-born violinist and conductor Dmitry Sitkovetsky and attend a special concert featur...View Details

In part 2 of my interview with Fan Tao, head of research and development for the D'Addario Musical String Company, Fan talks about how his family came...View Details

Noel Burke is one of the world's leading violin bow makers. He is also the younger brother of noted traditional Irish fiddle player Kevin Burke. I vis...View Details

Fan Tao is head of research and development for the D'Addario Musical Strings Company based in Farmingdale, New York. He is also past president of the...View Details

Joseph Kromholz is a violinist and professor of violin and viola at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio. I interviewed Mr. Kromholz in the...View Details

Clay Jenkinson is an acclaimed humanities scholar with a deep knowledge about the life and work of Thomas Jefferson, a paragon of the enlightenment wh...View Details

In part two of my interview with Irish fiddler Kevin Burke, we explore the relationship between the violin and the electric guitar. He also talks abou...View Details

Kevin Burke has been a mainstay of the traditional Irish music scene since the early 1970s. He has performed with groups such as the Bothy Band, Patri...View Details

In 2015, Paula and I visited Cremona, Italy, the city where the great masters of violin making, Amati, Stradivari, and Guarneri, once lived and worked...View Details

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 1980...View Details

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 i...View Details

While attending a wedding in Bozeman, Montana, I had the good fortune to interview Eric Funk, musician, conductor, and celebrated composer. Eric is al...View Details

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 mu...View Details

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...View Details

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 ye...View Details

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 playi...View Details

Husband and wife duo Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy are award-winning Canadian fiddle players. Natalie grew up on Cape Breton Island and Donnell ...View Details

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 Spec...View Details

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...View Details

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...View Details

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 fa...View Details

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 class...View Details

This podcast features an interview with Bruno Crosignani, director of the office of the Paneveggio Forest that manages the harvesting of tonewood from...View Details

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 c...View Details

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...View Details

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...View Details

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 ...View Details

Alicia is a violinist, composer, and founding member of the Grammy- winning Klezmatics. She collaborated on musical projects with violinist Itzhak Per...View Details

Scott Marckx is a violin maker and old-time fiddler living in Port Townsend, Washington. He is a also a builder of wooden boats and a philosopher. It ...View Details

Jeff Harshbarger is a bassist, composer, and band leader living in Lawrence, Kansas. In 2011, he was voted Best Bassist by Pitch Magazine. I first hea...View Details

In part two of this podcast, bassist Jeff Harshbarger talks about his different approaches to using a bow with a bass. He also talks about a remarkabl...View Details

I have know very few songwriters whose songs move me as much as those composed by Carl Jones. A multi-instrumentalist as well, and that includes the f...View Details

Erynn Marshall grew up in British Columbia but her love of traditional fiddle music eventually took her to the mountains of southwestern Virginia wher...View Details

Inspired by Carol Rodland’s Rochester-based “If Music be the Food…” food drive concerts, violist Kim Kashkashian launched a concert series titled Musi...View Details