CLASSICAL MUSIC / KENNETH HERMAN : Fiddle Concert to Offer a Smorgasbord of Styles

According to proverbial wisdom, Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Folk fiddlers, however, have never considered their art a mere diversion. Six practitioners of American traditional violin playing will perform in concert at 8 p.m. Wednesday at UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium. Their smorgasbord of fiddling styles will be the opening program of a West Coast tour (from San Diego to Seattle in three weeks) organized by Washington’s National Council for the Traditional Arts. Each performer on the concert represents a different fiddling tradition, from jazz violinist Claude Williams to Appalachian fiddler Kenny Baker and virtuosa of the Western long-bow style Alison Krause.

“Next to the human voice, the violin is best at taking on the particularities of regional and ethnic differences,” said the National Council’s director, Joe Wilson. “At one time, we were afraid that the differences between these traditions would be smeared over by the media, recordings and the like. Instead, we have seen a great renaissance in traditional and regional musical styles.”

Part of this resurgence, according to Wilson, has to do with the acceptance of women performers on instruments once considered the province of males.

“At one time, all the fiddle players were male, but now it’s OK for women to perform, so there are twice as many possible folk.” Wilson gave as an example the 18-year-old Krause, who has acquired a wall of contest trophies, her own bluegrass band (Union Station) and released both solo and ensemble records.

Other performers on this traveling folk cavalcade are Cajun fiddler Michael Doucet, leader of the Louisiana band Beausoleil; Joe Cormier, a New England musician who has mastered the intricacies of Cape Breton fiddling, and Seamus Connolly, a Boston-based Irish fiddler who has won his native country’s National Championship for traditional violin playing 10 times. According to Connolly, there is a direct link between his style of Irish music and North America.

“When I wanted to learn how to play Irish fiddle, I looked to American recordings,” Connolly said. “Many traditional Irish fiddlers, notably Michael Coleman, came to this country in the 1920s and made recordings of their music here. In fact, at that time there were more Irish fiddle players and pipers living in America than in Ireland. I studied Coleman’s style by slowing down his 78 records to 16 r.p.m. in order to catch every note.”

Connolly noted that other North American folk violin styles also have a European link. The Cape Breton style, for example, is rooted in the music that Scottish immigrants brought with them when they settled Canada’s Atlantic Coast. And some of these Scottish and Irish tunes turn up in the repertory of America’s Appalachian fiddlers.

“Folk players are always swapping one another’s tunes,” Connolly said. “Kenny Baker told me that a lot of the (Appalachian) tunes he plays come originally from Ireland.”

According to Connolly, folk violinists play essentially the same instrument their counterparts in symphony orchestras play.

“It’s exactly the same instrument, although the technique is different,” he said. “My violin is a French fiddle made in 1922. Some folk violinists flatten the bridge of their violin to make it easier to play double stops, but I don’t. I keep my bridge arched in the traditional classical French style. This gives more power to the sound, a much stronger tone, which is very important to me.”

Like most Irish fiddlers, Connolly plays a combination of dance music--jigs, reels and hornpipes--and slow, sorrowful ballads.

“These laments were either sad love songs or songs written for the loss of friends and family through emigration, usually to America.”

In tomorrow’s concert, the six players will play together only for the grand finale, but organizer Wilson likes to feature teen-ager Krause and octogenarian Claude Williams in a generation-spanning duet.

“When those two musicians play together,” said Wilson, “it never fails to lift the audience.”

Let it rip! It’s not every day that a San Diego city school gets to give the world premiere of an opera, but tomorrow evening, “Rip Van Winkle” will make its official debut at O’Farrell School of Creative and Performing Arts. After six weeks of intensive preparation, about 50 students from O’Farrell’s fourth through sixth grades will present the hourlong opera.

Last year, San Diego Opera commissioned Los Angeles composer Jeffrey Rockwell to compose an opera based on Washington Irving’s short story for the company’s highly successful “Hansel and Gretel” educational outreach program. Jack Montgomery, the program’s director, collaborated with Rockwell on the libretto and supervised the O’Farrell production.

“Rip Van Winkle” plays in the O’Farrell auditorium at 7 p.m. Unlike pricey downtown premieres, however, this performance is free.

Kudos. Chinese soprano Sylvia Wen won first prize ($1,000) in Sunday’s Metropolitan Opera district auditions held at the Civic Theatre. The 30-year-old singer will make her local opera debut later this week as Xenia in San Diego Opera’s “Boris Godunov.” A native of Beijing, Wen studied in Italy two years before moving to San Diego in 1988. Jose Medina, the 26-year-old Mexican tenor who appeared in Opera Pacific’s “Norma” production last season, won second prize ($500). Another tenor, San Diegan Donald Hendrick, was awarded third place ($300). All three singers were selected by the judges to compete in the Western regional auditions to be held next month at USC.

Win. Place. Show. Kevin Kenner, the pianist from Coronado who was America’s sole hope at this year’s Van Cliburn competition, can be seen and heard on KPBS’ (Channel 15) “Eighth Annual Van Cliburn Competition,” which airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday. Although Kenner did not make it out of the semifinal rounds of the competition, some critics felt the judges unjustly passed over this 26-year-old virtuoso.

Striking up the band. Although the musicians of the San Diego Symphony opened the 1989-90 season last Friday night at Symphony Hall without a new contract--their previous contract expired Sept. 30--there is no strike in sight. According to both management and labor sources, a new two-year contract is ready to be signed this week. According to an official of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 325, the orchestra members ratified the agreement last week, but the final wording was being ironed out. Members of the symphony board were to consider the final proposal last night. With memories of the canceled 1986-87 season still vivid, evidently neither side is eager for a repeat performance of that score.