Bio

I’m a queer Filipino-American violin maker and musician based in Providence, Rhode Island. More importantly, if you can say Arm & Hammer, then you’re very likely pronouncing my name correctly! I studied at Berklee College of Music and am a 2013 graduate of the North Bennet Street School in Boston, MA where I earned my diploma in Violin Making & Repair. Under the tutelage of master violin maker Roman Barnas, I built six violins and one viola, each one crafted in the style of the classic Italian instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries. I’ve participated in workshops led by Hans Nebel at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, MA; and am a two-time recipient of the Kaplan-Goodkind Scholarship from the Violin Society of America.

Picking up the fiddle and tin whistle in my mid-teens, I learned much of my music from renowned Irish musicians and tunesmiths Jimmy Devine and Patrick Hutchinson, both of whom helped foster my interest in the lyrical and colorful styles of musicians such as Denis Murphy & Julia Clifford, Bobby Casey, Lucy Farr, Johnny Doherty, and Tommy Reck. In addition to being the 2010 Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil Champion for Senior Fiddle, I was also a finalist at the Séan Ó Riada Gold Medal Fiddle Competition held in Cork, Ireland in 2011. I’ve taught fiddle and tin whistle for the Reynolds-Hanafin-Cooley branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Eireann in Boston; ukulele classes at the Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland, RI; and also teach privately in and around the Rhode Island area. I’m one-half of The Vox Hunters, a quarter of Eight Feet Tall, and at least a third of The Ivy Leaf.