MODERN MINSTREL - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Engineer
• Member of the Audio Engineering Society

Over the past three-plus decades, audio engineer Chris Frymire has earned the trust and respect of artists, venues and festival producers as someone they can count on to consistently produce high-quality live sound. Since 1989, Chris has been the in-house soundmixer and Technical Director for world-renowned Twin Cities' music venue the Cedar Cultural Center, where he's mixed many of the finest Acoustic Instrumental, Folk, Celtic, Blues, and other World music acts currently touring the international stage. 1989 also found him starting his long relationship with Grammy-winning Twin Cities label Red House Records; it's an affiliation he continued - starting as office manager to becoming Vice President of Operations and Business Affairs and eventually Executive Vice President - until the label's sale in 2017. His credits for Red House include Ramblin' Jack Elliot's 1995 Grammy Award-winning album, Southcoast, and Paul Geremia's critically acclaimed release, Live from Uncle Sam's Backyard. Chris' own company, Modern Minstrel Mixing, provides system design, live soundmixing, digital recording, editing, and mastering services. He's mixed literally thousands of live shows and has been the soundmixer of choice for many Twin Cities' area folk and world music festivals, including production manager/front of house soundmixer for SummerFolk (89-95), The Nordic Roots Festival (99-2008), The Minnesota Folk Festival (99-00), and The Irish Fair of Minnesota (99-2021). His love for music started in high school, both in front of and behind the stage. As a theater arts major at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, his first taste of the music industry was as a stagehand at the legendary Carlton Celebrity Room in Minneapolis for national touring artists including Mel Tillis, Roy Clark, The Oak Ridge Boys and others. From the Carlton, Chris moved on to providing live sound and lighting services to regionally touring acts throughout the Midwest. Shifting his studies away from the theater during this period, Chris received certificates in Studio Recording, Maintenance and Production from the Recording Workshop (one of the first recording studies programs available in the US). Chris is a member of the Audio Engineering Society, The Recording Academy (P&E Wing) and Folk Alliance International. Along with live sound, he's recorded and mastered many fine recordings from artists of all statures and genres over his lengthy career.