Alluvion Presents: Natalie & Brittany Haas with Nic Gareiss

A dynamic combination of folk music and traditional dance virtuosity from some of the highest caliber artists of their craft. Sister string fiddle and cello duo Natalie & Brittany Haas join together with dancer Nic Gareiss for a beautiful collaborative performance at The Alluvion. This is sure to be a truly delightful and inspiring evening.

Brittany Haas is widely regarded as one of the most influential fiddlers of her generation. Born in Northern California, Brittany grew up honing her craft at string camps nationwide, and developed her unique style of fiddling at the influence of her mentors, Bruce Molsky and Darol Anger. A prodigious youth, Haas began touring with Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings at the age of fourteen. At seventeen, she released her debut, self-titled solo album (produced by Anger). Haas continued to tour and record while simultaneously earning a degree in Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University (where she also minored in Music Performance). It was during her time at Princeton that Brittany was asked to join the seminal “chamber-grass” band Crooked Still, with whom she has made four recordings and toured the world.

Haas has always been a much sought-after collaborator and session musician. She has performed on Late Night With David Letterman and Saturday Night Live as part of Steve Martin’s bluegrass band, and features on Martin’s Grammy-winning album “The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo.” Over the years, she has performed with Bela Fleck, Abigail Washburn, Tony Trischka, Yonder Mountain String Band, The Waybacks, Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas (her cellist sister), and more.

Now residing in Nashville, TN, Brittany is currently involved in many exciting projects. In January of 2020, her quartet Hawktail (formerly Haas Kowert Tice, featuring bassist Paul Kowert of Punch Brothers, guitarist Jordan Tice, and mandolinist Dominick Leslie) released their follow-up album to 2018’s “Unless.” They continue to tour around the country with their original material. In 2015, Haas began touring with the Dave Rawlings Machine (featuring Gillian Welch) and can be found on their latest releases “Nashville Obsolete” and "Poor David's Almanack." In the fall of 2016, Haas began performing as part of the house band for Live From Here (formerly known as ‘A Prairie Home Companion’) hosted by Chris Thile. Brittany also continues to collaborate with her cellist sister Natalie Haas, Quebecois guitarist Yann Falquet, master Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser, Swedish fiddler Lena Jonsson, and percussive dancer Nic Gareiss.

In addition to her work as a performer, Haas is an instructor at various string and fiddle camps across the globe, sharing her knowledge and passion in hopes of inspiring the next generation of fiddle players.

Natalie Haas is one of the most sought after cellists playing traditional music today. She and Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser have toured as a duo for over twenty three years, wowing audiences at festivals and concerts worldwide with their unique sound. Their first album together, Fire & Grace, was awarded Best Album of the Year in the Scots Trad Music Awards 2004. Natalie has also toured with Mark O'Connor as a member of his Appalachia Waltz Trio. She and O'Connor premiered his double concerto for violin and cello, ¨For The Heroes¨, with the Grand Rapids, East Texas, and San Diego Symphonies. As a studio musician, Natalie has been a guest artist on over 100 albums, including those of Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster, Irish greats Altan, Solas, and Liz Carroll, and Americana icon Dirk Powell. 

A graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with cellist Fred Sherry, Natalie discovered the cello at age nine. In addition to having extensive classical music training, she is accomplished in a broad array of fiddle genres. Her music journey found purpose when she fell in love with Celtic music at the Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School at age 11. Inspired and encouraged by director Fraser, she began to investigate the cello's potential for rhythmic accompaniment to fiddle tunes, and to this day, the two continue to resurrect and reinvent the cello's historic role in Scottish music.

Natalie's skills as an educator make her one of the most in demand teachers at fiddle camps across the globe. She also teaches privately and in a workshop setting.

¨In the hands of Natalie Haas, the cello becomes a truly magical instrument." - Green Man

Nic Gareiss One of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” Nic Gareiss (he/they) is swiftly becoming recognized for his singular voice in the realm of dance, music, and the traditional arts. Informed by 25 years of ethnographic study and performance, Gareiss’ work draws from many percussive dance practices to weave together a technique facilitating his love of improvisation; clog, flatfoot, and step dance vocabulary; and musical collaboration. He has concertized in sixteen countries with many of the luminaries of roots music and folk dance including Alasdair Fraser, Natalie Haas, Bruce Molsky, The Chieftains, Colin Dunne, Darol Anger, The Gloaming, Ira Bernstein, Liz Carroll, Phil Wiggins, and Sandy Silva. Gareiss has performed at London’s Barbican Centre, the Irish National Concert Hall, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Kennedy Center.

A child of the folk revival, Gareiss grew up being dragged to folk festivals in the Midwest. At these events Nic learned Appalachian, Irish, English, and Canadian percussive dance surrounded by fiddlers, banjo-players, balladeers, and folksingers. This mix of movement, instrumental melodies, and traditional songs from rural places has become the heart of Nic's creative work.

Gareiss’ work enmeshes ethnographic research and embodied dance practice. His MA thesis based upon interviews with LGTBQ step dancers was the first piece of scholarship to query the experience of sexual minorities within Irish dance. Gareiss’ essay, “An Buachaillín Bán: Reflections on One Queer’s Performance within Traditional Irish Music & Dance” appears in the book Queer Dance: Meanings & Makings edited by Clare Croft on Oxford University Press. Recent writing commissions include the online journal Critical Studies in Improvisation’s special issue Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic and Jean Butler’s Our Steps project. Gareiss has lectured, taught, and presented work at McGill University, the University of Michigan, New York University, the University of Notre Dame, Princeton University, and the University of Virginia. From 2018-2019 he was artist-in-residence at the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland, the School of Scottish Studies, and the Moray House School of Education at the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland.

This will be a fully seated listening room style show.

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