“What's your favorite instrument?” people often ask. It’s one of those “which is your favorite child” questions. We have always enjoyed the diversity of sounds we could bring to one CD with the wide range of instrumentation we use, but we do get more requests for recordings of fiddle or violin music than any other. So for a change we’re narrowing the focus to create a whole CD of music that is lead, or in some cases driven, by the violin. Most of the tracks here come from our earlier CDs, but some are from other projects we’ve been involved in. Mike recorded and produced Iona Ritchie’s debut CD, and we both played backing instruments for her. This arrangement of “Captain O’Kane / O’Carolan’s Welcome,” with Tania playing viola on her five-string violin, comes from that project. Miriam Lambert commissioned from us the soundtrack for her puppet production of The Three Little Pigs, written by Tania, recorded by Mike. We've combined the music from three different parts of the show for the track included here. “Take It to Its Root” first appeared as original lyrics in Elizabeth Ann Scarborough’s trilogy of novels, The Songkiller Saga, from which she and Tania did a series of collaborative readings and performances. From our collaborations with another author, Anne McCaffrey, we include the tune Mike wrote and named for her when they first met, and a tune written by Tania for our second McCaffrey project. “The Harper’s Glass” appeared on that CD only as a setting for another song, so this is its first release as a stand-alone. The hornpipe set, “Navvy On The Line,” etc., we recorded for a stalled out project in which it may yet reappear. We had recorded “O’Carolan’s Concerto” for another unreleased CD, but for this one we started over and redid it using Tania’s string trio arrangement. Tania Opland - violin, viola, ‘cello, guitar, melodeon, vocals, mandolin, recorders, harp, hammered dulcimer, hurdy gurdy, midi. Mike Freeman - guitar, percussion. Guest musicians: Shonti Elder - violin (track 12, Overture); Iona Ritchie - violin (track 13); Dee de Wit - double bass (track 5); William Pint - guitar (track 8); John Peekstok - percussion (tracks 2 & 7); Jan Reed - percussion (track 8). “O’Carolan’s Concerto,” “Captain O’Kane” and “O’Carolan’s Welcome” are three of the best known compositions by the legendary 17th-18th century Irish harpist Turlogh O’Carolan. The rest of these tunes must have been written by someone sometime, but apart from the ones we wrote, we don’t know exactly how long they’ve been bouncing around from musician to musician and from place to place before landing together here. We hope you enjoy them.