Artist Spotlight - Gretchen Koehler
Our March Artist Spotlight cannot get enough of the fiddle, whether it’s performing, teaching, or composing pieces for the instrument.
Gretchen grew up in Western Massachusetts. When she was in kindergarten, fliers for free violin lessons were passed around in class. She took the flier home to her mom who got her started with lessons that followed the Suzuki Method. Similar to talking before reading, the Suzuki Method teaches students to play before they read.
Koehler had no problem practicing her instrument. All her mom would have to say is “Gretchen, it’s time to clean your room” and Gretchen would “dash around and say, ‘I was just in the middle of practicing!’’
Her first lessons in fiddle led her to a fiddle contest which furthered her love of the music. She would also play fiddle with Craig Eastman who was the 16-year-old that lived down the road. She would go to his house where Craig would play a tune and she would play it back. This is the way the fiddle tradition is passed on from fiddler to fiddler.
This brought about a “double life” for Koehler. She was playing fiddle music, but wouldn’t tell her fellow fiddlers that she also played classical violin, and wouldn’t tell fellow classical players that she was a fiddler. “Back in the day” she remembers, “crossing over styles was not as well accepted. It wasn’t considered a strength to play in both genres,” but she noted that is no longer the case today.
Gretchen’s passion for music brought her to McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Canada was an easy choice since many of the fiddle contests she was involved in as a young girl required traveling across the border. She kept her fiddle playing to herself while studying classical violin in university, but on the weekends she would go to friends’ houses in small Quebec villages and play fiddle for folk music parties and dances.
Koehler moved to the North Country about 25 years ago, as this is where her husband Joel Foisy grew up. She considers the North Country her home and established “Koehler’s School of Traditional Fiddling” in her fiddle studio in Potsdam. When she first started teaching, she felt it was best to teach any and all styles of fiddle that might interest the student, such as Bluegrass or Irish. However, she found overtime that her students did not have many tunes in common, so she decided to ask the older generation of fiddlers in the area for their North Country Old Time Fiddle favorites and put together a list of tunes that she felt every new fiddle player in this region should learn. With this core repertoire her students were more easily able to play tunes together, which was important for Gretchen because playing together brings different players together as a community.
Gretchen also commented that fiddling is often a family affair where one child is interested and then the parents and other siblings find themselves playing as well, especially when the siblings are at the lessons and listening. This was the case for Koehler, whose mother learned to help Gretchen learn to play. Her younger sister, Rebecca, ended up following suit as well.
Now Gretchen’s students, The Madstop Fiddlers, perform in a multitude of places including Traditional Arts in Upstate New York’s [TAUNY] annual “Sugaring-Off Party” at the start of spring, and The North Country Fiddler’s “World Fiddle Day Celebration” in mid May as well as smaller concerts throughout the year, including “jams” and “contra dances” right in Gretchen’s living room.
Along with teaching, Gretchen is a performer as well. She is a violinist with The Orchestra of Northern New York (ONNY, a previous spotlight) where she has performed several times as a fiddle soloist and was recently commissioned to compose a musical suite for ONNY that she performed with guitarist /singer Barb Heller. She’s also the music director for “The North Country Folk Orchestra” that performs fiddle repertoire featuring relaxed folk arrangements. She also performs with her duo, ”Koehler & Kelly,” which combines her traditional fiddle music with that of NYC jazz pianist, Daniel Kelly. They often perform farther downstate.
During the COVID pandemic, Gretchen felt the need for creativity but her inspiration had been dampened during the isolation. She decided to search for inspiration from a different angle instead, thus beginning a year-long project focusing on different traditional folk arts, such as quilting/ blacksmithing, and interviewed different artists about their work. She then took this information and composed a suite of tunes to represent each of the 8 folk arts, which she produced into a live, multimedia stage show, called “Fiddling With Traditions.” This year she expanded the suite to include 12 traditions and will be recording an album of the tunes. She has also produced a school program to enhance the students’ curriculum focus on local history and is looking forward to bringing the “Fiddling With Traditions” program to schools throughout the region this spring.
Find out more about Gretchen Koehler by visiting the links below:
