Katie Trauts joins the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra April 8 at the Barre Opera House

March 31, 2023  |  By Waterbury Roundabout 

The Vermont Fiddle Orchestra performs its 2022 Winter Concert at the Barre Opera House. Courtesy photo

The Vermont Fiddle Orchestra presents its spring concert at the Barre Opera House on Saturday, April 8, at 7 p.m. featuring guest artist, fiddler Katie Trautz of Montpelier. 

Admission is by donation.  

Trautz brings swinging Cajun music from Louisiana to the orchestra's program, which also includes traditional jigs, reels, waltzes and other old-time tunes from Ireland, Sweden, Quebec, France's Breton region, the Shetland Islands, Appalachia and Vermont.

Artistic Director Peter Macfarlane contributes a composition of his own, as well as two tunes by well-loved Vermont folk musician Pete Sutherland, who passed away in November.

Fiddler Katie Trautz joins the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra as a soloist for the April 8 Spring Concert at the Barre Opera House. Courtesy photo

Katie Trautz is a multi-instrumentalist and singer who has toured the U.S. and internationally sharing traditional music and original folk songs. Her Cajun band is Pointe Noir and she is also part of the old-time music band called Last Chance. She started The Summit School of Traditional Music and Culture in Montpelier, created a book of traditional harmony tunes for kids, and is now executive director of MontpelierAlive. 

When he's not arranging harmonies for some 35 fiddlers, several guitars, cellos, mandolins, flutes and pipes, a bass and a banjo and corralling them all into a fine performing orchestra, Macfarlane plays with the bands Atlantic Crossing and Frost and Fire, teaches fiddle, composes tunes, tutors biology and chemistry, and builds and paddles lightweight cedar-strip canoes.

The Vermont Fiddle Orchestra was founded in 2003 by fiddler Sarah Hotchkiss and it will celebrate 20 years of the fiddling community at its December concert. More information online at vermontfiddleorchestra.org.