Brittany Haas and Nic Gareiss
March 7th – Brittany Haas & Nic Gareiss — Fiddle Fire Meets Percussive Dance
Brittany Haas is widely regarded as one of the most influential fiddlers of her generation. Raised in Northern California and steeped in string camps from an early age, she shaped her signature sound under the mentorship of Bruce Molsky and Darol Anger. By fourteen she was touring with Anger’s Republic of Strings, and at seventeen released her self-titled debut album.
While earning a degree in Evolutionary Biology at Princeton, Haas joined the groundbreaking band Crooked Still, launching a career that has since taken her to stages from Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live with Steve Martin’s bluegrass band to recordings with Béla Fleck, Vince Gill, Abigail Washburn, Tony Trischka, Yonder Mountain String Band, and many more. She is the newest member of the Grammy-winning Punch Brothers, has toured with Dave Rawlings Machine, and in 2023 released the long-awaited duo album HAAS with her cellist sister Natalie. Named Americana Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year in 2020, Brittany continues to inspire the next generation through her electrifying performances and teaching.
One of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” Nic Gareiss is a singular voice in percussive dance, blending traditions from Ireland, Canada, and Appalachia into a thrilling, deeply musical style. Growing up surrounded by fiddlers, banjo players, and balladeers at Midwest folk festivals, Nic developed an approach rooted in clog, flatfoot, and step dance — rich in improvisation and intimate musical collaboration.
Gareiss has performed in seventeen countries with artists including Yasmin Williams, Bruce Molsky, The Chieftains, Colin Dunne, Darol Anger, The Gloaming, Jake Blount, Liz Carroll, Phil Wiggins, and Sandy Silva, with appearances at the Barbican Centre, Irish National Concert Hall, Munich Philharmonic, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Cork Opera House. He holds a master’s degree in Ethnochoreology from the University of Limerick, received the 2020 Michigan Heritage Award — the state’s highest honor for traditional artists — and in 2022 released a visual album with banjoist Allison de Groot that landed on NPR’s Best Roots Music of the Year list.
Together, Brittany Haas and Nic Gareiss create a spellbinding dialogue between bow and foot — a rare, intimate convergence of virtuosic fiddle and explosive percussive dance, perfectly at home in the listening-room magic of the G.A.R. Hall.
General Admission – 27.00
Join us in the bar area before the show at 7pm
Concert Hall doors open at 7:30pm
Music at 8pm