Hanneke Cassel & Mike Block

Hanneke's latest release, Dot the Dragon's Eyes features an all-star cast of musicians - including Mike Block, Rushad Eggleston, Jeremy Kittel, Keith Murphy, Christopher Lewis, Dave Wiesler, Ryan McKasson, Cali McKasson Kovin, and Ariel Friedman. Influences from the Isle of Skye and Cape Breton Island fuse together with grooves and musical innovations from the hip Boston bluegrass/Americana scene to give Hanneke a uniquely American approach to Scottish music. She creates sounds on the cutting edge of acoustic music, while retaining the integrity and soul of the tradition.

In addition to her solo act, Hanneke has performed with Baroque/Celtic group Ensemble Galilei, Irish singer Cathie Ryan, Cherish the Ladies, Alasdair Fraser, Matt Glaser & the Wayfaring Strangers, and Makem & Spain. She is an active member of Boston-based band Childsplay (featuring 20+ fiddles made by Bob Childs) and co-founder (with Laura Cortese and Lissa Schneckenburger) of Celtic chick band Halali. She teaches regularly at Alasdair Fraser’s Valley of the Moon and Sierra Fiddle Camps, the Mike Block String Camp, Harald Haugaard's International Fiddle School, and the Boston Harbor Scottish Fiddle School. Hanneke's fiddling has graced the stages of The Boston Hatch Shell (performing with Joey McIntyre of New Kids on the Block), Boston's Symphony Hall (opening for Judy Collins), Mountain Stage, and Lincoln Center.

Hailed by Yo-Yo Ma as the "ideal musician of the 21st Century", Mike Block is a pioneering multi-style cellist, composer, and educator living in Boston, acclaimed by the NY Times for his "vital rich-hued solo playing". While still studying at the Juilliard School, Mike joined Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and shortly thereafter also joined Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio. After becoming one of the first wave of cellists to adopt a strap in order to stand and move while playing, Mike was the first standing cellist to perform at Carnegie Hall, using a cello strap of his own design, called the Block Strap, a performance which the NY Times called "Breathless ... Half dance, half dare." The Mike Block String Camp began in 2010, and takes place each summer in Vero Beach, Florida, empowering string players to learn a variety of styles from a world-class faculty. Mike is also the founding director of the Global Musician Workshop, bringing together faculty and participants from diverse musical traditions around the world, and he leads the Multi-Style Cello School at ArtistWorks.com. Mike is an active recording artist of original material, folk music, cross-cultural collaborations, and he has an ongoing project to record all of the Bach cello suites in acoustically glorious bathrooms of famous concert halls, via BachintheBathroom.com. In 2012, Mike was appointed Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music.

His most recent album of original songs, Brick by Brick, features music he wrote and recorded while missing nine teeth, as the result of a traffic accident. In 2011, Mike released Naive Melody, an instrumental folk album with The Triborough Trio, and in 2009 and 2010, released two albums of original music with The Mike Block Band: Words R Words (songs), and After the Factory Closes (instrumental).

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