Paul Anastasio

Hi fellow violinists!
I'm Paul Anastasio. I've been playing the violin for many years. I've been fortunate to have had the opportunity to have studied, sometimes formally, more often informally, with many of the best swing jazz, western swing, country and old-time fiddlers in the world. I write a regular column for Fiddler Magazine and am the magazine's review editor. I am the co-inventor of The Impressionist, a revolutionary violin and viola chin rest insert that molds to the player's jaw. I also run a small CD company, Swing Cat Enterprises.

I teach throughout the U.S. at fiddle camps, offer four-day one-on-one intensive study sessions in my home near Seattle, Washington, teach weekly private lessons, and play gigs ranging from string quartets to bluegrass bands to old-style country music to western swing to Dixieland when they come along. I'm currently enjoying playing western swing in the Seattle-area band The Jangles.
Over the past twelve years, I have been a serious student of the regional violin music of southwestern Mexico's Tierra Caliente. For two to three months each year for most of those years, I studied in Mexico, primarily with Juan Reynoso, but also with a dozen other fine folk violinists. I made high quality audio recordings of all of my lessons with these maestros, over 2000 hours in all. Many of them were also digitally videotaped. I have transcribed 500 pieces from this remarkable regional repertoire using Finale '08. My primary teacher in Mexico, Juan Reynoso, was fond of arranging pieces from his vast repertoire for three violins in close harmony, and I have transcribed around 300 pieces as arranged by Juan for violin trio. I have expanded around a dozen of these works for string orchestra, and did a presentation of them at the national ASTA convention in Kansas City a few years back.
I am currently in the process of preparing a series of "Private Lessons with Juan Reynoso," which will consist of either video or audio of Juan playing a piece along with a transcription, MIDI file and live recording in which I am playing the piece.

I'm currently hard at work composing, writing swing etudes, arranging and trying my level best to play that difficult taskmaster, the violin. I'd love to hear from you!