Alasdair Fraser’s childhood home was anything but quiet. Born in the small town of Clackmannan, Scotland, to a musical family, he was surrounded by people who “did music for the love of it.” In their home, they sang songs and his father, a professional musician, played bagpipe tunes, teaching him music from the Scottish tradition.

At 8 years old, he began learning the violin — in part inspired by seeing his grandfather’s untouched violin in the house. Despite his classmates’ teasing as he carried the violin case throughout school, he continued on.

“I was fascinated by what the violin could do, and I enjoyed solving the challenge of it. It awakened my passionate love for music, which has stood the test of time to this day. It gave me a voice. It gave me a way of expressing myself,” he said. “I got to develop my ear learning at home, and then I’d go to school to develop my Western musical background and violin technique. What a gift that was.”

The two-time winner of the Scottish National Fiddle Championship and former Marin resident returns to the area with the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers for “Stravaig” at 7 p.m. April 26 at Dominican University of California’s Angelico Hall in San Rafael. Part of the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers’ spring concert series, the show, named after a Scottish word meaning to wander, digress and stray beyond limits, will feature around 80 musicians playing rousing tunes from Scotland and beyond.

“The concerts we give should feel like you’re in a giant living room in some community and you’ve been invited there by the locals and they’re doing what they do and have done for years,” said Fraser, who started the group that celebrates Scottish and Celtic traditions in 1986.

And dancing is more than encouraged.

“The fiddle has a bow arm that has been developed over centuries to encourage people to move. When we play our tunes, when I play my fiddle, I’m playing in a way that has been designed to get people off their chairs. I think we need this in the world today,” he said.

Finding his way

There was a time when Fraser questioned music’s role in his life.

“I was playing music everywhere. I was playing in orchestras in the National Youth Orchestra when I was a kid, and I was playing at parties and dances. Music was blossoming and flourishing in my life. But in those days, the kind of sensible advice that one got was music’s great, but keep it as a hobby. I was pushing on this idea: Is music something that you add on to your life, or is it more central than that?” he said.

After getting a degree in physics, he began working in San Francisco as a petrophysicist for British Petroleum. But music kept creeping back into his life.

“I was flying to Alaska one day, and then I was jamming in Paul’s Saloon in San Francisco with a bunch of bluegrass guys the next night,” he said. “I began to realize that music was calling to me in a much stronger way than I first would’ve thought. Music was a doorway into questions that cannot be solved by science. What is love? What is a good tune? How do you get people to dance? You can do that with music. You can change an environment and inspire people.”

When it finally hit him, he quit his job the next day and threw himself full-time into musical adventures. He would go on to start and direct the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers, the Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School and the Sierra Fiddle Camp, as well as travel around the world performing music.

“I really think that part of my job has been to nurture the next generations. I remember one kid who came last time we played in San Rafael. She came jumping out from the audience and ended up dancing on stage and then joined us, and then her whole family joined, and some of them are still playing with us today,” he said.

‘Touching the universal’

Throughout his career, the Nevada City resident has traveled around the world.

During his travels, he’s been able to connect with others through music. When a group of indigenous Maori people in New Zealand heard him play, they in turn played him music from their culture that they felt was similar.

“What amazes me is the universal nature of the music.

“I can play old Scottish tunes, and because there’s so much humanity in these tunes, when you take them anywhere in the world, there’s that universal resonance that you get from people who have never been to Scotland, never heard the music, but you tap into something that is touching the universal.”

While he’s not done playing music, these will be his last shows with the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers, as he steps away to make room for other people to have their interpretations of the music.

“I’m a huge believer in giving a voice to many solutions rather than saying, ‘Here’s the right way.’ I think it is healthy for an organization to do that, to empower the people that are coming up. … I think we do better when we take care of each other and go through this crazy life together and music helps us do that,” he said.