Caitlin Romtvedt, violin
David Romtvedt, accordion

Caitlin Belem Romtvedt grew up in a house full of music in Northern Wyoming. She fell in love with the fiddle at a young age and started playing, both through private lessons and with her parents. Later, through school, friends and family, she began to play alto saxophone and guitar. Since then, she has had the incredibly good fortune to live, study, and play music in Brazil, Cuba, the Basque Country, Ohio, New York, and Seattle. Caitlin has played with the groups Maracujá, Ospa!, At Five, Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots, Modern Bygones, The Fireants, Arrabita Taldea, and JunTaJo. She has experience teaching music, social dance, Capoeira Angola, and Spanish in university and school settings as well as various music festivals, camps, residencies, and workshops. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of GAIT, the social change research group at the University of the Basque Country. Her research deals with the intersections of music, dance, and language use in the Basque Country.

David Romtvedt is a musician and writer. He worked for many years as the coordinator of the children’s band lab at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. In fact, he managed the event in 1987, bringing Joe and Odell Thompson, Tiny Moore, and the Horseflies to the festival. He’s been on staff at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, the Sierra Swing Dance Week, and at Dos Encuentros, a festival bringing together traditional musics of Mexico, Canada, and the United States. He lives in Buffalo, Wyoming and performs dance music of the Americas with the Fireants who have released two CDs– Bury My Clothes and Ants on Ice.

As a writer, his books include poetry (Moon, How Many Horses, and Certainty), fiction (Free and Compulsory for All and Crossing Wyoming), and nonfiction (Windmill: Essays from Four Mile Ranch). David served as the poet laureate of Wyoming from 2003 to 2011. The recipient of a Wyoming Governor’s Arts Award, he has also been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming Arts Council, among others.