Sarah Neufeld
Sarah Neufeld

By MIKEL TOOMBS

Pop quiz.

Which is, ahem, hotter in Seattle: yoga or Montreal’s indie-rock breakout Arcade Fire (now of “The Hunger Games” fame and the Grammy-winning album “The Suburbs”)?

I know, I know, it’s a tough one. But you might not have to choose with Arcade Fire violinist Sarah Neufeld, who performs here Friday (May 4), not at KeyArena this time, but the Columbia City Theatre, as part of the Alone Together Tour (fellow soloists Colin Stetson and Gregory Rogove also are on board).

“Moksha Yoga Montreal became my second home to return to during the early days of being a touring musician,” said Neufeld, a Vancouver Island native. “I was drawn to the accessible style of practice, and the open-hearted nature of both the teaching and the studio environment.

“The Moksha practice is well-balanced,” she added. (Moksha, Sanskrit for “liberation,” is indeed a form of hot yoga, although when you Google “Sarah Neufeld hot,” that’s not the first thing that comes up.)

“When I’m exhausted or injured, it restores me. It also satisfies my inner energetic athlete, my love of sweating, and keeps me well in shape.

“I am now the proud co-owner of the first Moksha Yoga studio in NYC and that is proving to be a really amazing and fun adventure.”

An unaccompanied Neufeld may prove to be even more of a stretch to Fire fans, as she contrasts the “solo avant fiddle versus the enormous rock band.”

“Perhaps there’s a familiar spark of emotional intensity and relentlessness in my pieces,” Neufeld said. “But this solo stuff is a different animal, living somewhere between a lot of different genres. I think people will feel a lot of old fiddle sounds, some rock-ness and influences like Bela Bartok and Arvo Part coming through.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Mikel Toombs is a frequent contributor to GeneStout.com. Read his recent preview of the Portland Cello Project and Zoe Keating here.)

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