You can tell a lot about a musical scene by looking at the settings in which it thrives. Two very different events in the coming days embody the way that the demands and practices of a particular tradition can shape its presentation.

On Thursday, Freight & Salvage hosts Alasdair Fraser’s Freight Fiddle Summit, a communal celebration that marks the beginning of the 29^th season of his Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School in the Santa Cruz Mountains. And on Saturday, the Transbay Creative Music Calendar presents the 11th/12th Annual Bay Area Skronkathon Bar-B-Q at the Berkeley Arts Festival space on University Avenue, a sprawling all-day event that brings together a vast and varied menagerie of improvisers.

The Summit features the startlingly accomplished Menlo Park-raised sisters Brittany and Natalie Haas, the former a fiddler heard at the Freight last week with Darol Anger and the Furies, and the latter an innovative cellist who often performs in a celebrated duo with Fraser. Reaching beyond the Celtic world, the program also showcases New York accordionist Rob Curto, who tours with Mexican-American vocalist Lila Downs and leads Forró For All, and Claudio Rabeca, who plays his namesake instrument, the rabeca, a fiddle from the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, where he’s been an essential creative force for the past decade. … Continue reading »