Deb is a Seattle native.  She started playing violin at age 8, taking private lessons and joining a local youth symphony, Thalia.  She continued playing in orchestras (including one season with Seattle Youth Symphony, 1979-80) and taking private lessons through college at Washington State University, where she was fortunate to have a wonderful violin teacher for 6 years, Alan Bodman.  This was alongside studying for her chosen profession of architecture (still have the license, but haven't 'practiced', as we say, since 1999.)   After graduation, she played with a local group, Orchestra Seattle, for 12 years (1986-1998), and was co-concertmaster for the last 5 years of her tenure there.  She is currently concertmaster of Thalia Symphony (the adult version of the one she was in as a kid - yes, it comes full circle!) and is a member of the Tacoma Symphony. 

Deb took up fiddling around 1996.  She was a member of the tango band Tangoheart for a year (2000-01); she now plays a variety of dance fiddle styles, including contra, English country, and ballroom.  She incorporates a wide range of musical flavors in her playing, and is a versatile and creative fiddler. 

Deb is an experienced gigster, and has been playing weddings, parties, church gigs, you name it, for 20 years.  She has also been performing as a dance fiddler for about the last

10 years.

                nice things people have said:

I felt like I'd truly made the transition from classical violinist to fiddler when Warren commented, after a rowdy twin-fiddle old-time set with W.B. Reid:  "That was some serious skillet-lickin' sound!"

-Warren Argo

After a Folklife 2004 set with Larry Unger and Dave Bartley:  "That was fierce."

-Tony Mates

From Waltz Etcetera's dance guru:  "uncannily good fiddling . . . has she been down to the crossroads?!?"

- Bejurin Cassady