Rani Arbo &
daisy mayhem

Thank you, Ethan

I’m at my messy, book-piled kitchen table on this Wednesday morning, listening to the dishwasher hum and surfing our new web site before it goes live. April breezes keep swashbuckling through the back door (no screens on yet), and this is all spurring some deep gratitude — for the world at large, and specifically for  Ethan Hazzard-Watkins. Ethan and Anand collaborated on masterminding this new site, and Ethan designed and built it.

I met Ethan first digitally, as he fiddled  “The Torn Jacket” on an mp3 that Rebecca Lay, dance caller and farmer extraordinaire, sent me one winter to lighten up the gray. I listened to this tune over and over again to learn it; only later did I take the time to figure out who was playing it so fetchingly. It was Ethan, on his 2005 release, In the Window. In fact, I’m listening to it now. In fact, I’ll post it here. Huzzah!

The Torn Jacket/Martin Rilly’s

The Torn Jacket, then, led me to the handful of fantastic bands that Ethan fiddles in, often with his wife, Anna Patton, who is a master of all styles clarinet. Together they have a contradance and concert band called Elixir, and several other musical permutations — to avoid confusion, I’ll steer you to their web sites to sort out all the excellence. There is a lot of it.

So, I’m feeling doubly thrilled to be associating with Ethan. I love the web site he made for us.  I’m looking forward to blogging here, and to hearing from our visitors. Now, if I can spend as much time playing fiddle tunes with Ethan as we spent e-mailing back and forth these last two months, I’ll be a very lucky gal. One can only hope.

Welcome!

Welcome to our new site! We’re glad you’re here. Take a look around at the new digs. At first things might seem a little spare, we’ve just moved in after all, but we still have a morsel or two to share. Check out Anand’s first-ever blog, take a look at the pretty pictures, listen to the music, in short, enjoy yourself! And please let us know if there’s anything we could be doing better. (more…)