Students Delight in Fiddles and Violins at Weekend Concerts

The students of Thomas Aquinas College, New England, were treated last weekend to two markedly different, yet joyful campus concerts.

On Saturday renowned champion fiddlers Tashina and Orin Lindley paid a visit to the Olivia Music Hall, where they introduced students to Celtic and Texas-style fiddling. Joined by members of the faculty and their families, students danced well into the night.

With Mrs. Lindley playing the violin and fiddle, and Mr. Lindley, the mandolin and guitar, the couple holds numerous national championships, many from the National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest and Festival in Weiser, Idaho. The Lindleys came to know the College by way of two alumni, Eve (Bouchey ’97) and Jeremy McNeil (’96), whose children have long played Irish music in a family band, Sierra Silverstrings. “They would sometimes head over to our house to give us lessons or even play with us, up to five hours at a time,” recalls the McNeils’ daughter Maureen, now a TAC freshman.

The next evening the College and its New England’s neighbor, the Moody Center, welcomed the return of Ashuelot Concerts from Keene, New Hampshire, to the Moody Auditorium. Due to illness, what was supposed to be a musical trio became, instead, a duo as Louisa Stonehill (violin) and Nicholas Burns (piano), performed Arvo Pärt’s Speigel im Peigel; Mendelssohn’s Violin Sonata in F; and Strauss’ Violin Sonata in E-flat, Op. 18.

Students spent the evening marveling at the classical music. “Their cellist was sick, so they had to put together something within a week,” observes junior Matthew Witzaney. “With the little time they had, the concert turned out to be amazing.”