I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, where I am a fiddle player, fiddle teacher, writer, and editor. I play Celtic music. Generally speaking, that means Scottish, Irish, and other music from the British Isles. Dance music is what I love best—Scottish country dances, English country dances, and Irish set dances, as well as contra dances, parties, and concerts with the fiddle-guitar duo, The Elftones.

I teach privately, and coach students in the fundamentals of fiddle playing, introducing them gradually to the techniques that make the music sound more Irish, or Scottish, danceable, lyrical, and most important, fun to play.

Before I started playing music full-time in 2002, I wore a technical writer and editor hat, working for 25 years with various organizations and corporations like the World Health Organization, Texas Instruments, Becton Dickinson, and Square D / Groupe Schneider. I am now a freelance technical writer on the side (more music now!), and I also write a few articles and essays just for fun.

You can hear me play on several recordings with The Elftones: an album of waltzes, and two albums of Irish and Scottish tunes.  We also have a wonderful recording, All the Pretty Horses, graced with Rhiannon Giddens’ beautiful voice. My newest recording, Heather Hills, is with Dave Wiesler on piano, as we have a splendid time playing Scottish tunes for dancing, and for just listening. 

Visit me on YouTube--click here for a look at English country dance (what you might see in one of the Jane Austen films like Pride and Prejudice, or in Becoming Jane).

...And here for a sample of some contra dance fun as The Elftones play for a dance weekend in Socorro, New Mexico.

...And here for some fast-moving Irish polkas from an informal Elftones concert in New Mexico in 2007.