Thursday, OcTOber 21, 2021 • The buLLeTIN
GO! MaGaZINe • PAGE 3
ALL THINGS MUSIC
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Globally inspired folk-classical duo:
Alasdair Fraser, Natalie Haas return to Bend
BY BEN SALMON • For The bulletin
F
or more than two decades, Scottish fiddle legend Alasdair Fraser has been making music with mega-talented California cellist Natalie Haas. And for almost
as long, the duo has been traveling to Bend to perform for locals who prefer their instrumental music to be elegant and danceable at the same time, hand-
crafted but globally influenced and at once both deeply rooted in tradition and relentlessly progressive.
Taken off the road by the COVID-19 pandemic for
the past two years, Fraser said he has missed his an-
nual visits to Central Oregon.
“I developed my own internal hermit lifestyle,
which was interesting,” he said in a phone interview.
“But when it comes to doing what we do, which is an
intense love affair with music and community … well,
it feels very good to be back out and coming up to Or-
egon.
With a new album of globetrotting folk-meets-clas-
sical tunes called “Syzygy” out, Fraser and Haas will
return to town Monday night for a show at the Tower
Theatre. Before he headed this way, Fraser took some
time to answer a few questions from GO! Magazine.
This interview has been edited slightly for space and
clarity.
Q:
a:
Your new album came out late last year. Was it al-
ready in progress at the start of the pandemic or
did you record it entirely during the pandemic?
We went into the studio in January of 2020 and
we got a bunch of stuff done. And then COVID
gave us the time to just work on it and develop it and get
BEER ST P
THE BEST STOP FOR CRAFT BEER
If You Go
What: alasdair Fraser & Natalie haas
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Where: Tower Theatre, 835 NW Wall st., bend
Cost: $25-$45 plus fees
Contact: towertheatre.org or 541-317-0700.
to know the music and decide what we were going to do
with it. And they, yeah, we released it in December but it
was kind of a hollow feeling because we never toured it.
So now, it kind of gives us new fuel and it’s a fresh look at
what we do after 22 years on the road together.
How important is new fuel and a fresh look at this
Q: Well,
point in your all’s collaboration?
Natalie and I kind of have an agreement to
a:
keep pushing forward. You know, we keep testing
each other with new ideas, and questioning the tradi-
tional forms. It’s always been a part of traditional mu-
submitted photo
Continued on next page
No Bad
Hair Days
Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas return to Bend Monday.
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