Our History

David Kaynor

David Kaynor served as Music Director from September 2013 through the 2019 autumn concert, when health complications necessitated his retirement. Despite nearly complete paralysis from ALS, he continued composing using eye-gaze computer technology and text-based musical notation. He received the 2021 CDSS Lifetime Contribution Award from the Country Dance and Song Society, and passed away in 2021.

Kaynor began playing fiddle in 1974 and started calling contra dances in Western Massachusetts around 1980. Over three decades he became a prominent figure in New England and national contra dance communities, teaching at Northern Week at Ashokan, Contra Dance Musicians’ Week at the John C. Campbell Folk School, and Northeast Heritage Music Camp, and performing at Pinewoods, Buffalo Gap, Mendocino, Lady of the Lake, Wannadance Uptown, the Summit School, and many others.

The VFO created a video celebration in David’s honor. Members performed his composition “Montague Processional” during his hospitalization — a tribute that brought together many of the musicians whose lives he had shaped.

In Sarah Hotchkiss’s Words

At the 20th Anniversary concert in 2023, founder Sarah Hotchkiss reflected on the orchestra’s first two decades. Her daughter Elizabeth Rossano documented the founding years in a film titled “No Audition Required: The Vermont Fiddle Orchestra’s First Ten Years,” which chronicles the orchestra’s origins and the 10th Anniversary celebration. Hotchkiss described the film as a record of “how transformative music can be no matter what age you are when you first start making it.”

She characterized David Kaynor as a “much beloved director” who expanded the organization significantly during his tenure, and praised Peter Macfarlane for maintaining continuity and bringing the orchestra through the pandemic — first through online rehearsals and then back to in-person performances — while Susan Reid’s teaching and arrangements continue to deepen the ensemble’s range.