Fred Elias: The Earliest Recordings of a Legendary Violinist at Home in the Granite State
Fred Elias: The Earliest Recordings of a Legendary Violinist at Home in the Granite State Fred Elias, 1961. NRE New Box 38, MZ. Star News and Pictorial. Courtesy of the Immigration History Research Center, Anderson Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. If you are of a certain age or generation and you grew up near or in Worcester, Massachusetts, the Boston Metropolitan area, or Manchester, New Hampshire, you’ve likely heard the name Freddy Elias, Freddie Elias, Fred Elias, or Frederick Elias. Patrons of El Morocco, Club Zahra, or the Averof will recall various iterations of Elias’s musical ensemble playing at one of these memorable social venues for mixed Arab American, Armenian American, or American Greek crowds. The career of Fred Elias encompasses the period from roughly World War II to the 2010s, but the story of this Arab American violin virtuoso begins back in the 1920s. The career of Fred Elias is one of the most documented by scholars of so-call...