Location: Lee, NH
Challenge: Focal Dystonia
Website: www.captainfiddle.com
Ryan Thomson is a music and dance professional who has been honored by inclusion on both the Traditional and Touring Artist rosters of the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. He is a past winner of the Northeastern Regional award at the National Fiddle Contest and is a multi-instrumentalist who performs and teaches weekly on fiddle, banjo, flute, piano, accordian, pennywhistle and other instruments. In his spare time he enjoys playing chamber music in an amateur classical ensemble.
He is available to contribute his musical talent to charitable organizations. As an eligible NEST grant artist his performances for non-profit organizations can be funded up to 50% through NEFA (New England Foundation for the Arts).
He studied science at San Diego State University, then attended the University of New Hampshire where he taught a credit course in the Psychology of Music while a graduate student. He acquired the nick name "Captain Fiddle", from his co-workers on college radio WUNH where he played his fiddle live on his fiddling and folk music show for several years.
He continued on radio with a regular Sunday night show on National Public Radio WEVO.
In the early 1980's he passed an audition to play in an award winning Nashville based country band and toured the eastern states from Missisippi to Maine. He twice received the nomination for "Country Fiddler of the Year", from the Massachusetts Country Music Association.
In 1994 he won a Boston Music Awards nomination for Best Ethnic/International Act for his accordion playing while leading the Crawdad Wranglers cajun and zydeco band which has been playing for cajun dancers in New England for over 20 years. Ryan was invited in 2000 as a special guest artist to perform at the Celebrate New Hampshire Festival sponsored by the Smithsonian. In 2003 he was hired to tutor fiddle at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Washington.
After years of searching libraries from coast to coast he had discovered that no general book about folk fiddling existed. He decided to fill that niche and in 1985 founded Captain Fiddle Publications by authoring his first book, "The Fiddler's Almanac", a general reference source about fiddlers and fiddling which can be presently found in over 3000 libraries in the United States and Canada. He has since authored numerous fiddling and fiddle books, recordings, and instructional DVD videos on various musical topics. Ryan's works have received top reviews from the American Library Association and many other music publications. His solo clawhammer banjo CD, Great Bay Stomp, has received excellent reviews, for example.
In 1990 Ryan developed focal dystonia, a genetic disease which temporarily prevented him from playing his violin. He overcame his disability by devising a musician's cure for focal dystonia. He converted his fiddle to left handed, relearned to play violin, and earned his first trophy playing violin left handed at the Southern Vermont Scottish Highland Games.
His experiences have made him an excellent fiddle teacher and workshop leader and he been invited to speak at disability forums including VSA. Watch video samples of both his right handed violin playing - right #1 , right#2, right #3, and left handed violin playing left #1, left #2, left#3.
His research into handedness has resulted in the publication of an informative documentary work on the history and practice of musicians who play violin left handed - "Playing Violin and Fiddle Left Handed" He has also authored several instructional videos for left handed musicians including - "Left Handed Fiddling for Beginners" and "Left handed banjo playing".
For the past several years Ryan has been actively performing with his son Brennish as the Fiddling Thomsons. They won the Twin Fiddling award at Lowell National Historic Park, 2010, and perform widely for dances and concerts. Their new CD album has been well received.
Fiddling Thomsons - "Shetland Islands fiddle tunes"