Kathy
Selby - Fiddle Player and Mom
Senior
Lecturer, Department of Physics, Cornell University
When Kathy is not teaching physics, she is usually playing the fiddle, or looking after her rambunctious children, Michael and Owen.
Kathy plays fiddle for contra dances (er, what's a contra dance?), English and Scottish country dances, and performs at festivals. She also plays for concerts, weddings and parties, teaches private fiddle lessons and gives workshops. Her repertoire centers around traditional Celtic, British and North American fiddle music, including tunes from Scotland, Ireland, England, New England and Quebec. Kathy's style is lively and expressive, with strong ties to the roots of these old fiddle traditions.
Kathy grew up in England, singing and playing both folk and classical music from an early age. After a visit to Ireland in 1993, she underwent a rapid and fanatical conversion from violinist to fiddle player. She has performed in a wide variety of instrumental and vocal genres, including folk singing, madrigals, musicals, Gilbert and Sullivan, and classical choral and orchestral works. In the USA, her love of traditional fiddle music has been nurtured by the teaching of master fiddlers such as Alasdair Fraser, Martin Hayes and Rodney Miller, at the annual Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle School and Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp.
"Though quantum chaos thrills us and superconductivity chills us, "Smash the Windows" wins the 1995 Nobel Prize in Party Music for their performance at our Physics Department Holiday Winterfest... truly fine melodies and vocals." Prof. Roger Falcone, Chairman, Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley.
"Her musical talent is sublime, and encompasses the folk traditions of England, Scotland and Ireland." San Francisco Gael.
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