by Mike Telin
“Music is something that throughout time has developed different flavors around the world,” violinist Edwin Huizinga said during a 2022 telephone conversation.
For Huizinga, there are no borders in music. He said that even centuries ago, music was being shared in houses and pubs, for example by the itinerant Irish harpist Turlough O’Carolan.
“He was blind and there are stories of him meeting up with Baroque musicians and composers and sharing tunes with each other. So one of my passions in life is to share the fact that all music is similar in the way that it’s created. It comes from a rhythmical background, and a community background.”
Fire & Grace — violinist Edwin Huizinga and guitarist William Coulter — take listeners on a journey across cultures, moving freely between musical worlds, and finding connections that are both ancient and alive.
On Super Bowl Sunday — a day that brings out plenty of competitive spirit — spending the afternoon with Apollo’s Fire felt like the perfect balance. In the few hours before “The Big Game” on February 9, those of us listening to the music in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights were all rooting for the same team.
An audio recording does not do Fire & Grace & Ash justice. In their 2019 album, Partita Americana, the trio — Edwin Huizinga, violin, William Coulter, guitar, and Ashley Hoyer, mandolin — brought first-rate musicianship to a melting pot of classical, bluegrass, and folk music. It’s a record that’s impressive enough on its own, but it paled in comparison to the trio’s live, in-person concert on April 30 at St. Malachi Church.
“Music is something that throughout time has developed different flavors around the world,” violinist Edwin Huizinga said during a Sunday morning telephone conversation.
To create their latest album, violinist Edwin Huizinga and guitarist William Coulter drew inspiration from the natural world. The duo, known as Fire & Grace, recorded their third project together among the redwoods of Northern California.
Any talk show worth its weight possesses three qualities: a host who is knowledgeable of the subject matter, guests who are engaging conversationalists, and a feeling that by the end of the program, you’ve learned something.
