![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eorWe saw Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas at the free Saturday night concert in Freeport. We had never heard of them in particular, but went because it was listed as Scottish/Celtic music. It was a lot of fun and very good music.
I can't say enough good things about Natalie Haas. If you weren't watching you'd swear she was switching instruments three times in the same tune. She bows, she strums, she plucks, she chops, getting all kinds of different tones and inflections out of her instrument. She also has an incredible sense of the music, fading back into the background and circling around the foreground instrument to suddenly appear from the other side. Incredible.
Alasdair and Natalie together make a great combination. Their instruments and styles complement each other. At times Alasdair's high and fast playing counterpoints Natalie's smooth bowing. At other times Natalie's chops and short strokes are playing right along with Alasdair's faster and trickier. When they both slow down and stretch out the notes you feel the open spaces and the air in the air. The two together are great to listen to.
The audience in Freeport was the typical Freeport audience, mostly aged and arthritic. For the encore song they did hold a gun to the audience's head until they stood up and moved about a bit, but they were really fighting gravity and age. One girl in front of us obviously had dance training because her bare feet moved so fast my eyes could barely follow them, alas she only kept it up for 30 seconds or so then stopped because no one beside her or before her was dancing. I would like to see them in a setting where there is a space to dance and people inclined and able to do so.
I highly recommend seeing this duo if you get a chance. They'll be in Scotland next, then back in the States at lots of locations.
I can't say enough good things about Natalie Haas. If you weren't watching you'd swear she was switching instruments three times in the same tune. She bows, she strums, she plucks, she chops, getting all kinds of different tones and inflections out of her instrument. She also has an incredible sense of the music, fading back into the background and circling around the foreground instrument to suddenly appear from the other side. Incredible.
Alasdair and Natalie together make a great combination. Their instruments and styles complement each other. At times Alasdair's high and fast playing counterpoints Natalie's smooth bowing. At other times Natalie's chops and short strokes are playing right along with Alasdair's faster and trickier. When they both slow down and stretch out the notes you feel the open spaces and the air in the air. The two together are great to listen to.
The audience in Freeport was the typical Freeport audience, mostly aged and arthritic. For the encore song they did hold a gun to the audience's head until they stood up and moved about a bit, but they were really fighting gravity and age. One girl in front of us obviously had dance training because her bare feet moved so fast my eyes could barely follow them, alas she only kept it up for 30 seconds or so then stopped because no one beside her or before her was dancing. I would like to see them in a setting where there is a space to dance and people inclined and able to do so.
I highly recommend seeing this duo if you get a chance. They'll be in Scotland next, then back in the States at lots of locations.
