Hi!
My name is Alfred Rordame. My life journey has taken me down many roads and music has always been the sound track. If you’d like to get to know me, read on. The short answer—I’m a trained luthier who cares about musicians, their instruments and the music they make.
Just a well-seasoned artist and craftsman here to serve the string community of Snohomish County!
I’m telling my story here in case anyone is interested in how I got here or why I’m doing this. Maybe you’ll see some of yourself in my tale, but most importantly I hope that sharing myself opens the door to a deeper relationship with those who come to Snohomish Strings!
I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in the mid 1950s. I guess that makes me mid-century modern.
I was introduced to the joys of music when my grandfather encouraged me to join the elementary school band. I played clarinet and even amongst the din of out of tune notes and horseplay I found something that really spoke to my soul. My grandfather played the violin and as we played together he opened my mind, my heart, and my ears to the mysteries of music.
School Years
School Years
I don’t recall if it was 4th of 5th grade, but my orchestra teacher pulled me aside from the clarinet section one day and said, “I have something you might be interested in.” She took me to the music closet and pulled out a bassoon. I think since I was a big kid, she figured I could handle it. I loved the bassoon and played it all through college.
Middle school was also when I joined my first band. We were a group of like minded kids who all really loved the Doors. We covered a lot of their tunes and played for school dances. I was playing keyboards in that group.
When I got to high school I was introduced to the jazz band. Since I played bassoon, the jazz teacher thought I’d be a shoe in for the baritone sax. It didn’t take long before I noticed that the tenor sax got the solos, so I switched.
The high school jazz band competed in Reno, Nevada every year at a school jazz competition. During the competition, I learned about the Stan Kenton summer big band workshops and attended all for years while in high school.
Now that I was playing sax, I switched bands and started playing sax with another band during high school. It was the disco era and through high school and into my twenties I played a ton of dance clubs with a few different bands.
After high school I got a scholarship to play bassoon with the college orchestra. I lasted about two years going to school in the day and playing in clubs at night. One day I thought to myself, why am I going to school to play music when I’m putting myself through school playing music. So I ended my first college experience.
I did pretty well in the club scene but got tired of playing covers and the same old songs every night. I was lucky to meet a theater director at my old university and he hired me to write music for one of his plays. This lead me back to school where I composed music for theater and ballet. At this time, it was possible to design one’s own major, so with my director friend as my advisor I set out to get a degree in Composition and Choreography for Theater and Ballet. How did choreography sneak it’s way in there. While working with the aforementioned director he told me that the way he blocked his plays was heavily influenced by ballet choreography and suggested I study with the ballet department. Long story short, choreography got added to my major.
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Francesca Piovani
Founder, CEO & Architect
Rhye Moore
Engineering Manager
Helga Steiner
Architect
Ivan Lawrence
Project Manager
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