String Trio uses tunes from the instrumental and ballad traditions of the Blue Ridge Mountains. At times the "borrowed" music is overt; at other times it is submerged, as if in shadows. Fiddle tunes, including "Granny Won't Your Dog Bite" and "Ducks on the Millpond," are taken from some of the oldest recorded
fiddlers from the Round Peak area on the North Carolina-Virginia border, where a distinctive instrumental tradition dates back two centuries. Pizzicato figures suggest the Blue Ridge clawhammer banjo style. The theme of the central Adagio is reminiscent of "The House Carpenter," one of the most prevalent English ballads to survive in the Southern mountains.

Commissioned by the Spoleto Festival U.S.A.