with Kevin Carr
Galicia, Spain
fiddle, gaita, percussion, culture

Alexandre Cadarso Suárez was born in Compostela in 1961. He holds a PhD in Sports Sciences, Physical Education and Healthy Physical Activity from the University of A Coruña. He currently works in the Sports Area of the University of Santiago de Compostela.

Alexandre began his musical training in 1977, learning to play the bagpipes with Maestro Bartolo and later with Manuel Miramontes. He  then studied music at the Conservatory of Compostela and the Conservatory of Traditional and Folk Music of Lalín.

In the 1980s he was a chorister and piper with the prestigious traditional music ensemble, A.F. Cantigas and Agarimos. From there he continued his performance career in such groups as Durindaina, Brincadeira, Verdegaio, and A Requinta de Amaía.

Today he concentrates his musical activity as a musician playing in the rousing and joyous choral/instrumental group, Os Muiñeiros do Sarela, and in the colorful and exciting Ethnographic Group of Ferrol. He also continues to deeply enjoy his role as a professor, teaching classes on Galician bagpipe and various other traditional instruments for the organization he helped found, A.C. Follas Novas de Ames and also, since the early 2000’s at the beloved and well known music gathering known as Lark Camp, in Mendocino, California.

Not content with the number of instruments he has already mastered (gaita, accordion, traditional wooden flute and requinta, as well as various types of traditional percussion instruments), several years ago he began learning to play the fiddle with María Blanco and later continued his studies with professor Loida Díaz.

Alexandre has put a great deal of love and energy into the promotion and dissemination of traditional music, devoting significant efforts to the organization of courses, conferences, festivals and other activities.

He is the also the author of a number of books on traditional music, traditional instruments, acclaimed musicians, and folk song:  A Requinta Adobada (2012), Juan Bello Mallou, O Gaiteiro das Casas Novas (2013), Cantigas de Taberna (2017) and The Essence of our Traditional Sound (2021).

Alexandre will be accompanied by Kevin Carr at Fiddle Tunes. Kevin is a well known American storyteller and multi-instrumentalist (fiddle, various types of bagpipes, guitar, melodeon, banjo, mandolin). From a young age he was attracted to traditional music. He has spent most of his life pursuing that muse, travelling to learn at the source from musicians in Ireland, Quebec and Galicia, and today he is a respected and appreciated traditional and dance musician throughout America.

He is a member of several performing groups: Wake the Dead, Hillbillies from Mars, OSPA, Orujo, Les Têtes de violon, The Family Carr as well as a number of contra dance ensembles.

Kevin’s musical influences and inspirations include, among many others: Bill Jackson, Tommy Potts, Mose Allison, Johnny Doherty, Theresa McClellan, Seamus Ennis, Jules Verret, Lisa Ornstein, Liam O´Flynn, The Animals, John Fahey, Alexandre Cadarso, Pablo Carpintero, Florencio O Cego Dos Vilares, Pancho Alvarez and Paul Hostetter.

In addition to having played for decades at dance camps across the country and in Mexico, the Soviet Union and Europe, he has been on the staff of the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and has taught fiddle at Alasdair Fraser’s Sierra Fiddle Camp, and he regularly teaches at the Lark music camp in Mendocino, California and at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington.

Kevin, in addition to being a great connoisseur of the music and culture of Ireland, Cape Breton, Quebec (Canada), the Basque Country and various other parts of the world, feels a great affinity for and connection with Galicia, and is a lifelong student  and lover of traditional Galician music.