David Klingler

Hi, I'm David, a Scottish Fiddler. I've been playing the violin since 2000, and gave my first lesson on violin in 2005. I began doing more active teaching in 2018. My favorite music to play is traditional Scottish fiddle music!

Although I began playing this instrument in 2000, I began focusing on Scottish fiddle music beginning in 2006 when I started studying with Dr. John Turner at the Jink & Diddle School of Scottish Fiddling.

Scottish fiddle music has a unique ability to make people dance and make people cry. I am known to play it in a distinctly stylistic way based upon the tradition from the Golden Age of Scottish fiddling, the 18th century. My teaching/pupil lineage goes directly back to Niel Gow (lived 1727 to 1807) himself, the most iconic Scottish fiddler-composer in history. Like Niel Gow, I focus on playing the fiddle with emotional expression above all else while challenging assumptions in tune interpretation yet aggressively maintaining an ingrained traditional sense in my interpretation.

In 2010, I won the largest material prize in the history of our tradition, the Niel Gow Fiddle Award, the only time it was ever given, at the U.S. National Scottish Fiddling Championship, and have in other years won numerous other National awards and Regional awards.

I've personally written around 300 tunes in the Scottish idiom, a number of which have been performed by other notable musicians.

Currently, I'm developing two new music books as primary author, focused on Scottish music.