Fiddler’s Galaxy

Kenneth Frazelle was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina and was a student of Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School. He attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he now teaches. He is composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Santa Rosa Symphony. His score for Still-Here brought him international acclaim. The music, written for the folksinger Odetta and ensemble, was written as part of a multimedia dance theatre work. The film version of Still-Here has been viewed by millions on National Public Television and in Canada, France and Japan. Composer and percussionist Aaron Bachelder has composed Chamber, choral, Orchestral and electronic music, as well as songs in popular genres. In addition to his compositional activities, he is a founding member of the improvisational Chamber group, the Spool Ensemble, and the rock band Chapsticks. Robert Ward writes that his piece Appalachian Dances and Ditties "reflects the interest I have had in American folk music in general since the 1950's and in Appalachian music in particular since the 1970's when my wife and I had a second home in Sparta, North Carolina. The richness and vitality of that music is unparalleled by that of any other region of the country." Lukas Foss writes: "I wrote my Three American Pieces at a time when I was in love with my newly adopted country. All the music possesses an open-air quality I think I learned from Aaron, but I have handled it my own way. And there is always the influence of folk music - I looked at it a lot. I was also in love with jazz. The only popular idiom I never got close to was Broadway."