In this episode Anais has the pleasure of interviewing the lovely and talented Texas style and swing fiddle player Katie Glassman. Katie shares a few tunes and stories about how music has touched her life and so many others, especially since the pandemic. She advocates that it’s never too late to pick up an instrument! Learn more about her online fiddle school at www.fiddleschool.com
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About Katie Glassman:
Katie Glassman is that rare musician who possesses a combination of instrumental virtuosity and powerful musical expression. She is one of the country’s most renowned and decorated Texas-style and swing fiddlers, as well as an accomplished songwriter, singer, and a highly sought after educator.
Based in Denver, Colorado, Katie toured and recorded with the renowned trio, The Western Flyers — 2018 Ameripolitan Awards “Best Western Swing Group” and Western Music Association and the Academy of Western Artists “Western Swing Album of the Year” award for Wild Blue Yonder. Katie Glassman and Snapshot is her hometown swing quartet highlighting her original songs — they have released two commercial records, Snapshot and Dream A Little Dream. As a vocalist, Katie won “Female Western Swing Vocalist of the Year” by the Academy of Western Artists in 2018.
As an educator, Katie is the founder, owner, and primary instructor at the online fiddle academy, Fiddle School.com. Since Fiddle School opened in 2018, her thorough online curriculum has given fiddlers around the world the opportunity to learn, improve, and progress in Texas-style fiddling, Western Swing, and early jazz. Offering over 600 instructional videos and countless webinars on fiddling and improvisation, Katie is also an innovator, creating a modern curriculum for a traditional American art form. This is her fiddle pedagogy in a nutshell. She began teaching students of all ages in 1994, many of whom have gone on to become National and state fiddle champions themselves. The Fiddle School “Fiddle From Home” program has been an incredible outlet for fiddlers of all levels throughout the pandemic.
As a fiddler, in 2017, Katie won her 4th National Swing Fiddle Championship in Weiser, Idaho. She also took first in both the Bob Wills and Open divisions at the Bob Wills Festival and Fiddle Contest in Greenville, Texas, and she is the seven-time Colorado state fiddle champion. Other notable victories were in 2013 at Rockygrass in Lyons, Colorado, Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, as well as her two National Championship titles from 1998 and 2001.
Katie holds a bachelor’s in performance with a jazz certificate from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and in 2007 spent a year studying jazz violin at the world-renowned Centre Musique Didier Lockwood in Dammarie-Les-Lys, France. And yet, her true musical education came at the feet of the Texas greats she heard and learned from during her decades of competing and jamming at fiddle contests. Jimmie Don Bates, Dale Morris, Wes Westmoreland, and Joey McKenzie are Katie’s living links to the great tradition of Texas-style fiddling.
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