Musician Keenan Fletcher stays sharp, whether playing classical violin or Texas fiddle
Violinist Keenan Fletcher has played for symphonies, orchestras, and ensembles across the country, but she is also right at home on stage at The Ragtime Oriole in downtown Marble Falls every Friday. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey
Keenan Fletcher was born with two great gifts from God: an ear that could effortlessly make sense of music and a mind that struggled to decipher the written word.
The first made her a natural musician; the second forced her to develop a work ethic strong enough to overcome her learning disability and perform at the highest level. Using the knowledge gained from decades of dedication to her craft and a true passion for teaching, Fletcher teaches the next generation of virtuosos right here in the Highland Lakes
The trained classical violinist runs the Hill Country Chamber Orchestra, a small, dedicated group of musicians based in Llano that plays a few local shows a year, intentionally tackling challenging classical works like Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1880 composition “Serenade for Strings.” She also offers lessons through her own program, Agape Haus Music Studio, in violin, viola, cello, piano, guitar, and fiddle.
“You have to change the culture of ‘that’s good enough,’” Fletcher said. “We need to work to make it excellent. With every student, I try to pour 100 percent into them and give them everything I can possibly give. It feels really special to have people that want to be on board with that.”
The orchestra plays a concert series in May and September and a Christmas show to close out the year. Fletcher herself performs at The Ragtime Oriole coffee shop in downtown Marble Falls every Friday and The Church at Horseshoe Bay on Sundays.
As a teacher, she draws from a deep well of experience. She began playing the piano at 6 years old and the violin at age 9. She received a stellar musical education and has played professionally for years. She has been able to hear music, memorize it, and replicate it from a very young age.
“People around me were playing music, and I would imitate it on the piano,” Fletcher said. “My parents felt like I had a gift, so they got me into piano lessons early.”
She quickly found a place in a youth orchestra in her home state of Montana, then in Colorado after a family move, and again in California after another shift. While she naturally excelled in music due to her innate talent, she struggled in school and had trouble reading music. She had, and still has, severe dyslexia.
“If you have any kind of disability, it affects everything that you do,” Fletcher said. “I had to go through eye therapy to get my eyes to work together and relearn how to read.”
Although Fletcher struggled with schoolwork and comprehending sheet music, she still had the confidence to pursue music professionally, diving into the necessary work. When she arrived in Orange County, California, her first real mentor, Barbara Porbe, took her ambitions seriously and put her on the right path.
“I felt really fortunate that I was able to land in the right place at the right time,” she said. “Barbara poured into me endlessly. She came from a really strong technique lineage. I can trace my roots all the way back to Corelli.”
Fletcher was referring to the 17th- to 18th-century Italian violinist and composer Arcangelo Corelli, who helped shape what we know today as classical music. By her “roots,” she means a lineage of teachers who can document and trace their style all the way back to the maestro himself.
Fletcher still carries the sheet music from many of her teachers and passes it down to her students. One of her treasured items is a tuning fork used by other violinists in her lineage since the 1800s. The fork rings at 442 hertz rather than the modern pitch standard of 440 hz, giving those in her line a unique sound.
By her late teens, Fletcher was buried in practice, playing six to 12 hours a day to compensate for her dyslexia. While her training has slowed down since then, an enormous amount of practice is essential as a violinist, regardless of the skill level at which you want to play, she said.
“It takes learning the instrument for seven to 10 years before you make music,” she said. “This is not a one-week thing; it’s a lifestyle, like yoga. Just do the daily muscle-regimented things and have fun while you’re doing it, and at some point, you’ll blink and be making great music.”
Her dedication paid off, and she made it into the University of Texas Butler School of Music, where she studied under Leonard Posner, a legendary violinist and composer famous for his work with Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey.
Despite her progress, she still struggled with sheet music as the standards of play rose around her.
“I had to get music ahead of time because sight reading was not an option,” she said. “I couldn’t funnel information fast enough. All of my professors knew and gave me the type of accommodations I needed. They didn’t sugarcoat anything but gave me the music ahead of time.”
Her challenges with dyslexia came to a head during a concert in which she was just a few chairs down from Itzhak Perlman, a Grammy-winning composer who had performed during presidential inaugurations and for state dignitaries and as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Fletcher feared failing in front of a living legend and asked to be moved, but her professor refused, pushing her to overcome her dread.
“I could hear (Perlman) breathe, and I could watch him the whole time,” she said. “I remember being so nervous because I was always so anxiety-filled that I would misread something. I had to memorize everything.”
Today, she credits her hard-nosed teachers with much of her success.
“They really pushed me a lot as far as overcoming obstacles—I just had to work twice as hard,” she said. “It made my ear a lot stronger, and it made me more intuitive. Musically, I feel like it was a gift because I didn’t have to rely on my eyes; I just memorized everything quickly.”
After graduating from UT, she and her family settled in Dallas, where she played with the Texas Chamber Orchestra and freelanced for symphonies and ballets across the state. She found a niche in the classical music scene of the Lone Star State, but her journey would take another turn, toward the Hill Country.
She and her husband wanted to raise their three children away from the city, and after a little searching, they found Llano and moved to the Deer Capital of Texas in 2006. Far from any cosmopolitan urban centers, Fletcher made do with what she had.
Lacking a classical music culture in her new home that was strong enough to sustain the level to which she was accustomed, Fletcher tuned her violin to play fiddle music, something she did for almost 10 years before returning to her classical roots.
She focused her intense work ethic on mastering Texas-style fiddle, playing at the Llano Fiddle Festival for years and sitting knee to knee with greats like Johnny Gimble, Marty Elmore, and Wes Westmoreland. She was also a main stage act for the Festival of Texas Fiddling and is currently a member of the Texas Old Time Fiddlers Association.
While pursuing the fiddle, she didn’t totally neglect her classical upbringing. She helped found the Marble Falls Orchestra alongside the Highland Lakes area’s own legendary composer, Robert Linder. She also taught music at the Boys and Girls Club of the Highland Lakes and Harmony School of Creative Arts in Marble Falls.
“All of that was a lot of energy,” she said.
Fletcher stepped away from her classical pursuits after a few years and focused on her fiddle work until a major flood hit the area in October 2018.
She had been asked to perform a classical piece in the Llano Fiddle Fest that year but was reluctant to do so. A rapidly rising Llano River swallowed her family’s home in Llano in the middle of the night on Oct. 16, 2018. There was little time to gather possessions, but Fletcher managed to save the sheet music she had collected from her teachers.
Following the devastating event, her passion for classical music reignited, and she reworked and then memorized a Johann Sebastian Bach G minor solo sonata just one week before the 2018 Fiddle Fest.
Within a few months, she was taking on students and teaching classical music again. She founded the Agape Haus, and from there grew the Hill Country Chamber Orchestra. Now, nearly six years later, the classical seed she planted has sprouted and seems to be thriving.
“It’s not often to have a studio of people who are willing to do the hard work to be excellent at something,” she said. “I always had the belief that the Lord would bring the students to me, the ones that I was supposed to work with.”