Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas

The musical partnership between Alasdair Fraser, long regarded as Scotland’s premier fiddle ambassador, and the sizzlingly-talented young cellist Natalie Haas may not seem an obvious one — but it’s the fulfillment of a long-standing musical dream for Fraser, helping him return the cello to its historical role at the rhythmic heart of Scottish dance music.

Haas is the percussive power to Fraser’s fiddle fireworks, providing syncopated, bowed underpinnings to his melodies and solos” —Kira Schlechter, Patriot-News, Harrisburg

Fraser, acclaimed by the San Francisco Examiner as “the Michael Jordan of Scottish fiddling,” has a concert and recording career spanning 30 years. Haas, a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, wasn’t even born when Alasdair was winning national fiddle competitions on the other side of the Atlantic. She was just 11 when she first attended Fraser’s Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School in California. She responded to Fraser’s challenge to find and release the cello’s rhythmic soul, and four years later, Fraser and Haas began playing gigs together.

It’s inspiring to hear the cello unleashed from its orchestral shackles!” —Alasdair Fraser

The duo performs frequently in Europe, and throughout the US and Canada. They have been featured on NPR’s The Thistle & Shamrock and Mountain Stage, and represented Scotland at the Smithsonian Museum’s Folklife Festival. We’re so pleased to welcome them back to our stage.