Theas Waltz

From a workshop held at The West Concord Dance, October 19, 2024, Beth Hoven Rotto and Jon Rotto taught Thea's Waltz from the collection of Johan Arndt Mostad, traditional fiddler from the Decorah, Iowa area.

Beth Hoven Rotto graduated from Luther College in Decorah in the 1970’s and has lived there ever since. She is a dancer and fiddler who has studied, recorded and performed the music of the Driftless Region for many years. She has apprenticed with famed fiddler, Bill Sherburne in the 1980’s; she then formed the band the Foot-Notes who were invited to the Smithsonian Institution’s 1996 Festival of American Folklife in Washington, D.C. In 1998, Foot-Notes recorded My Father Was a Fiddler. . . in honor of the Decorah area’s rich heritage of dance music, which came from tunes Beth collected from the daughters and granddaughters of some of the early fiddlers. In 2022, she became an Artist-in Residence at the University of Wisconsin – Madison to review hundreds of hours of cassette tape recordings from Arnold Munkel (1918-2003). Munkel was a mechanic and welder from Spring Grove, Minnesota who devoted much of his time to documenting Norwegian-American folk and old-time music played at events in southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Sponsored by the Minnesota State Fiddlers Association and the West Concord Historical Society.