Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas at Club Passim

Tonight (April 28, 2026) I streamed a sold out performance by the fiddler Alasdair Fraser and the cellist Natalie Haas at Club Passim.

The two shows at Club Passim were part of the musicians’ farewell tour:

After 26 years of amazing musical explorations and great times, Alasdair & Natalie are about to embark on different projects.

Alasdair Fraser continues to run his Sierra Fiddle Camp, where local musicians Summer McCall and Conor Hearn are members of the faculty. Among her numerous activities, Natalie Haas is an instructor at Mike Block String Camp.

Alasdair and Natalie played tunes from their new album, Meridians, “new compositions representing the apex of their musical journey of the last 25 years up to this point.” They were having a lot of fun playing, and they expressed that felt like they were with family at Club Passim.

The tune “The Lady of the Lathe” was inspired by Alasdair’s wife, Sally Ashcraft, who has taken up wood turning. Alasdair said he and his family live in the Sierra Nevada where plenty of downed trees are available as source materials for Sally’s creations, which include beautiful cello endpin anchors.

The two played a medley, “Cranachan / The Oatcake Club,” dedicated to Scottish oatcake and a dessert, cranachan, which is made from fresh raspberries, double cream, oats, honey, and Scotch whisky.

In her spoken introduction to a 5/8 tune, “El Cinco Transatlántico / Jota para la Princesa Castellana”, Natalie said she has lived in Spain for the past four years, in Galicia, the Celtic part of Spain (extreme northwest Spain) where folk music is played in 5/8 time.

Alasdair told a story about playing at Scottish Country Dancing at Pinewoods (where local Scottish fiddler Hanneke Cassel is music director for 2026). In that year, Alasdair was invited to stay on to play for a week for English Country Dancing with the group Bare Necessities. Alasdair and Natalie played an English country dancing tune whose name I did not catch.

“Peace Longing” was their penultimate tune. Natalie explained that this tune has a more complex, orchestral arrangement, hence she needed to read music from her music stand (this is unusual for Celtic music players). Natalie related a musician’s joke that using a music stand was not shameful because it meant the player was able to read music.

The last tune in their regular set was “Highland Hoedown.” For their encore, they played “Turbulence,” and Alasdair asked the crowd to “express ceilidh behavior.”

That was a really fun show.