Photo courtesy of the artist

2002 NEA National Heritage Fellow Bob McQuillen Peterborough, NH Contra dance musician/composer

Contra dance, a form of social dance done in straight lines, was brought to New England with its earliest Anglo settlers. During the past 200 years, it has become part of life in the region's town halls and community centers. Bob McQuillen, pianist and accordion player, has held a central position in that scene for more than 50 years. He was born near Boston, but his family moved to southwestern New Hampshire when he was a child. Although his grandfather played accordion and his father played the piano, McQuillen did not turn seriously to music until he returned from service as a Marine during World War II. Some friends took him to a local dance, and he became interested in playing the accordion. He continued his day job teaching industrial arts at the local high school in Peterborough, New Hampshire, but also began playing accordion and piano for dances throughout the region, working with the legendary contra dance caller and historian, Ralph Page. In 1973, McQuillen wrote his first tune, Scotty O'Neil, named for a student who died tragically. Since then, he has written more than 1,100 dance tunes, many of them national and international classics throughout the expanding contra dance universe. Still, it appears that his greatest joy comes from what he sometimes modestly calls "boom chucking," providing the propulsive rhythms for a contra dance band that set feet and bodies moving on the dance floor.

 
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NEA Heritage Fellows
1982-2012: 
BY YEAR | ALPHA