TUNE: Frosted Hinges/Calavera Reel
Hello friends!
As a contribution to Facebook’s “365 Days of Fiddlers/Fiddle Tune Library,” pianist Daniel Kelly and I play two of my compositions, “Frosted Hinges/Reel de la Calavera.” Included below is some tune history, the tunes in action at a contra dance, and sheet music for my friends who read the dots!
Enjoy!
Gretchen
Gretchen Koehler & Daniel Kelly play Koehler's tunes, "Frosted Hinges" and "Reel de la Calavera.” (New Paltz, NY.)
FROSTED HINGES
Frosted hinges on the inside of the Koehler-Foisy door at -25F. (Foisy photo)
It gets so cold in our border town of Potsdam, New York…
~how cold is it?
~ it’s so cold that the metal hinges on the inside of our doors freeze! I dedicate this to all of my North Country neighbors who know what I am talkin’ ‘bout!
Daniel Kelly and I debuted this contra dance tune on the main stage at the Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs, a Northern New York. (see video) The Flurry is an incredible gathering of thousands of contra dancers (and so many more styles like swing, tap, belly dancing, waltz) in the snowy month of February. The 400 (!!) dancers during our session warmed up the room!
KOEHLER & KELLY’s Stage P.O.V. @ the Flurry Festival! Frosted Hinges, Calavera Reel & Wizard’s Walk.
REEL DE LA CALAVERA
Koehler Foisy family’s alter for Dia de Muertos.
Our family was introduced to the celebration of the Day of the Dead/Dia de Muertos by our friends from Mexico -Janet, Sigfrido and their children. In 2004 they spent the fall semester living in our town while Sigfrido worked as visiting professor in the Department of Theater and Dance at SUNY Potsdam. We instantly loved their family and enjoyed sharing meals, laughs, and traditions. Their boys taught our young children about Dia de Muertos.
For our altar/altares de muertos we made sugar skulls known as calaveras. We mixed together a wet mixture of sugar and meringue powder that looked like a big bowl of wet sand. We packed everything into plastic skull molds and waited for them to dry and harden overnight. My boys went wild decorating the skulls with homemade piping bags of colorful frosting. It is not uncommon for Mexican kids throw the skulls at a hard surface to break them into bite size pieces and eat them! I did not share this information with my boys, (a-hem) and our sugar skulls have survived for 13+ years and look like the day we made them. The Calavera Reel/Reel de la Calavera is twisty and playful tune that brings me the fondest memories of our time with their lovely family.