The Fraser Family call the Adirondacks and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia home. The patriarch of the clan was Angus Fraser. Like many others on Cape Breton Island, Angus came from a family of fishermen. It was in Cape Breton that he learned to play the fiddle. Angus left his ancestral home following the lumber camps into New York State. There he fell in love with and married the camp cook. Four generations of Frasers have lived in Harrisville, New York, and fourteen members of the family play and sing on their CD, Home of Our Hearts.

Almost every one of them plays an instrument or sings. Kim said her father played “everything – mandolin, fiddle, guitar, banjo.” Her mother, Ethel, who is in her 90s, plays piano and guitar. Kim is a self-taught musician, as are her siblings, expressing themselves as songwriters, and performers in various solo and group endeavors.

Together, the family members come together to harmonize on songs learned on their trips to the Cape Breton that tell the stories of the people who make their livings from the sea, as well as music that honors the laborers in the mines and mills of upstate New York. The family gathers regularly to sing both traditional Scottish and Irish songs handed down through the generations, as well as new compositions of a Celtic style.

“The Frasers sing with heart and an awareness that the music they perform has been passed down through generations of their own family and the larger cultural group they represent. The combination of passion and carefully practiced harmonies is irresistible,” says TAUNY Executive Director Jill Breit, who was also executive producer for the CD recording.