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SHORT BIO:
Exceptional among modern fiddlers for his versatility and depth, Darol Anger has helped drive the evolution of the contemporary string band through his involvement with numerous pathbreaking ensembles such as his Republic Of Strings, the Turtle Island String Quartet, the David Grisman Quintet, Montreux, the Duo and other ensembles. Today Darol can be heard on NPR's "Car Talk" theme every week, along with Earl Scruggs, David Grisman and Tony Rice. He has recorded and produced scores of important recordings since 1977, is a MacDowell and UCross Fellow, and has received numerous composers' residencies and grants. He is a featured soloist on dozens of recordings and motion picture soundtracks.
Darol Anger Full biography
Violinist, fiddler, composer, producer and educator, Darol Anger is at home in a number of musical genres, some of which he helped to invent. With the jazz-oriented Turtle Island String Quartet, Anger developed and popularized new techniques for playing contemporary music styles on string instruments. The virtuosic "Chambergrass" groups Darol Anger's Republic Of Strings, Psychograss, and the long-lived Anger-Marshall Duo feature his compositions and arrangements. His Grammy-nomimated folk-jazz group Montreux was the original musical model for the New Adult Contemporary radio format. The David Grisman Quintet forged a new genre of acoustic string band music with Darol's fertile inventiveness, surprising touches and technical mastery
(Boston Herald) often in the forefront. On any day, Darol can be heard on NPR's "Car Talk" theme along with Earl Scruggs, David Grisman and Tony Rice.
Working with some of the world's great improvising string musicians, among them Stephane Grappelli, Mark O'Connor, David Grisman, Tony Rice, Bela Fleck and Vassar Clements, has contributed to the development of Anger's signature voice, both as a player and a composer. His work includes recordings, videos, and books of jazz originals and arrangements, and traditional-derived music in many styles.
Anger has produced dozens of critically lauded recordings since 1977 which have featured his compositions and performances. Highlights include two recent recordings by The Republic Of Strings, his current intergenerational group; Heritage, a monumental masterpiece which brought together most of the most important voices in the traditional, contemporary folk and bluegrass music scene; Psychograss and the Anger-Marshall Duo's ongoing iconoclastic string of recordings, which continue to set new standards for the Newgrass/jazz genre; collaborations with Cajun fiddler Michael Doucet (the Grammy-nominated Fiddlers 4), with banjoist Alison Brown, and the String Cheese Incident's Michael Kang; and a recent release Diary Of A Fiddler, which sets Anger in duet with the most prominent and innovative fiddlers of our time.
Anger helped found the String Resource Board of the International Association of Jazz Educators. He has led seminars at the Stanford, Oberlin and Amherst Jazz Worshops, regularly teaches at the Berklee School of Music and the Mark O'Connor Fiddle Camp, and at workshops and clinics from Campo Do Jordao, Brazil to the Music Conservatory at Bremen, Germany. He has released two popular instructional videos for Homespun Tapes, is a Contributing Editor for Strings magazine, and serves on the ASTA Editorial Board.
The recipient of a 1995 California Arts Council Composer Fellowship, Anger was nominated in 1997 for the CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts. He is a McDowell Fellow and received a Composers' Residency from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He has been a featured soloist on a number of motion picture soundtracks, and he wrote and performed the score for the Sundance Award-winning film Best Offer. He was the winner of the Frets Magazine Readers' Poll for Best Jazz Violinist for four years running. he is the Music Director of the StringNation Festival, an annual contemporary music festival hosted by Rutgers University.
Anger's work has expanded not only the acoustic violin's boundaries, but contributed to the development of violin synthesizer repertoire and technology. His writings on these subjects and various string education issues appear regularly in music periodicals.
Anger' main project is his Republic Of Strings ensemble, with the classical vocal group the Anonymous 4 and chamber music work and recording with pianist Phillip Aaberg and duo work with multi-string virtuoso Mike Marshall. He appears as a guest with a wide array of trasditional, jazz, and pop music ensembles.
NARRATIVE BIO:
Darol Anger has spent the last 30 years opening connections between violin styles of the world. Exceptional among modern fiddlers for his versatility and depth, his style and his rhythmic innovations have changed fiddling all over the globe. Darol's career began in 1975 with the legendary David Grisman Quintet featuring guitarist Tony Rice. With these 2 players as Darol's first great musical mentors, the DGQ established the highest-ever standards of performance for a string band up till then. In the Quintet, Darol worked with musical giants such as Stephane Grappelli, Vassar Clements, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Dr. Billy Taylor, and Mark O'Connor, and met long-time musical partners multi-string wizard Mike Marshall, pianist/vocalist Barbara Higbie, and composer/violinist David Balakrishnan.
After leaving the DGQ, he recorded a string of successful albums for Windham Hill with Marshall, Higbie, and The Montreux Band, working closely with other musical luminaries such as innovative guitarist Michael Hedges, bassist Michael Manring, and steel pan genius Andy Narell. With composer/violinist David Balakrishnan he founded the Turtle Island String Quartet. Turtle Island blazed a new frontier for the venerable string quartet form, teaching and performing their original music, mind-boggling jazz arangements, and other contemporary music all over the world while teaching their breakthrough style and techniques along the way.
After 11 years with Turtle Island, Darol returned to new acoustic and world string band music, often working with other great fiddlers of the day, forming the bands Psychograss (with Marshall, banjo giant Tony Trischka, bluegrass guitar hero David Grier , and grammy-winning bassist Todd Phillips) the Grammy-nominated Fiddlers 4 (with reknowned cajun fiddler Michael Doucet, Appalachian revivalist Bruce Molsky, and cello phenomenon Rushad Eggleston), Newgrange (with grammy winner Tim O'Brien and Compass Records founder/banjo whiz Alison Brown), the 4 Generations Of Jazz Violin (with jazz violin giants Regina Carter, Johnny Frigo, Joe Kennedy Jr., Matt Glaser and others), and his much-loved long-running collaboration, theAnger-Marshall Duo. His latest collaboration has been with the phenomenally popular early music group the Anonymous 4. These collaborations have yielded a string of important recordings spanning over 30 years which define, develop and encompass an entire genre of music.
His latest group, The Republic Of Strings, is the latest step in this process, passing on the knowledge of his mentors' generation to a new generation of brilliant string musicians, with respected guitar innovator Scott Nygaard and a stream of amazing young talent, continuing in the musical tradition of bandleaders such as Bill Monroe, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, and David Grisman.
An award-winning composer, Anger is also committed to string education and helped create the String Resource Board for the International Jazz Educators Association. He is a contributing editor with Strings Magazine, teaches at Mark O'Connor's Fiddle Camp, and continues to discover and expose new string talent. And bla bla bla!
