Prepare for an evening of wild invention when pioneering fiddle maestro Darol Anger and his ground-breaking Fiddle Ensemble (formerly known as the American Fiddle Ensemble) take the Freight to places it's rarely been before, as they celebrate the release of a new album, Republic of Strings (Compass).

Violinist, fiddler, composer, producer and educator, Darol Anger is famous as a creator of innovative string techniques. For 25 years, Darol has continually reinvented the American string ensemble to incorporate his explorations into American traditional, bluegrass, jazz, and world musics in groups he helped found such as the Turtle Island String Quartet, the David Grisman Quintet, Psychograss, Newgrange, and Montreux.

With the Fiddle Ensemble, in collaboration with flat-pick guitar master Scott Nygaard, cello phenomenon Rushad Eggleston, and fiddle's newest prodigy, Brittany Haas, Darol once again explodes the limits of tradition. The Fiddle Ensemble helps redefine the boundaries of the string quartet and the string band, bringing the two forms together and radically altering standard repertoire and technique.

In concert, as well as on their new album, Anger's award-winning original compositions and Nygaard's own intriguing tunes, along with a selection of traditional music from Appalachia, Sweden, Brazil, Mali, and elsewhere, showcase the Fiddle Ensemble's virtuosity, open-heartedness, and irresistible sense of fun.