If you don't know the name of Celtic fiddler Jamie Laval, chances are you've heard his music. The fiery bowmanship of this 2002 U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion can be heard in numerous television shows, films and CDs, including Dave Matthews' "Some Devil," Warner Bros.' "Wild American" and the WB television series "Everwood."

On Friday, North Carolina-based Laval will perform at Cal State San Marcos with colleague Zag Leger, who's the All-Ireland Piping Champion and a guitarist/bouzouki player. Their two-hour concert will feature Celtic music from Scotland; Ireland; Bretagne, France; Galicia, Spain; Quebec, Canada; and Appalachia.

Laval comes by his love of Celtic music genetically. His mother's family was Scottish and his father had relatives from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. He studied classical violin at Canada's Victoria Conservatory of Music (and worked for a time as a symphony and studio violinist), but his love for the fiddle/contra dance culture was born when he attended a barn dance in Alberta, Canada, and eventually focused his career on rural Irish and Scottish folk music. He now tours the U.S. and Scotland (from his home base in Asheville, N.C.) performing what he calls progressive Celtic music at more than 120 concert engagements a year.

Laval talked a bit about his career and Friday's concert in an interview via e-mail.

Q: Tell me about this appearance on Friday and what you'll be playing with Zac Leger.

A: Two years ago, Bill Bradbury (a professor of music at Cal State San Marcos) heard me perform with Ashley Broder at the International Mandolin Symposium in Santa Cruz and invited me to give a lecture/demonstration for his university class. The music I play has a strong historic and ethnological basis and draws from my classical training and from modern music influences, so it fits nicely into an academic context. Bill is an ardent supporter of live acoustic music (he's a fine mandolinist and composer in his own right) and subsequently suggested my doing a full-length concert which would be open to the public.

My concert on Friday will present several different Celtic styles (Irish, Scottish, Quebec, Appalachian, etc.) in a very lively format of toe-tapping tunes and stories from the road.

Q: Is Zac a frequent collaborator?

A: I've been touring with multi-instrumentalist Zac Leger since May of this year. Zac lives in L.A. but grew up near my home in North Carolina and knows Celtic roots music inside and out. He's an ideal accompanying musician for me in that he is brilliant at guitar, bouzouki, and Uillean (Irish) bagpipes. This is our third tour together since May, and I'm planning to do several other tours with him later this season.

Q: How would you define progressive Celtic music?

A: The basis of my music is drawn from very old traditional village dance melodies (100 to 400 years old) from the British Isles. Traditional tunes have been handed down aurally from through the centuries, right up to the present day. But rather than my playing the tunes in precisely the same way as they've always been rendered, I like to introduce my own influences and experiences into the musical fabric. In this way, I participate in the natural evolution of the music. That is how traditional music is able to express the sentiment of the social climes in which a people live.

Q: Because the performance is on campus, will there be a teaching component to the program?

A: In all my concerts, I like to offer a bit of cultural background about where the tunes come from, through telling an amusing story or giving some context for the different styles I play. In this way, the format will be no different for the Cal State San Marcos performance.

Q: Is the San Marcos concert part of a weeklong California tour?

A: Yes. I first booked four days in Tehachapi, where I'm performing and teaching at a fiddle camp with the great multi-instrumentalist Joe Craven. Fortunately, I was then able to add bookings at Cal State, Bakersfield, Brentwood, and a recording session for the radio program "Folkscene" all during the same trip.

Q: You started out as a classical musician before you turned to the Celtic genre. Do you think the classical training was good preparation for the direction your career took?

A: Yes, absolutely. Most especially because it enabled me to develop a strong technical foundation and an ergonomic manner of playing the instrument. Regrettably, though, my conservatory training had some glaring voids for which I had to make up later. The largest of these was understanding how to play "danceably," if you will. Playing with good "time" (classical) isn't the same thing as playing with good "groove" (fiddle). Learning how to create a good dance groove was the largest single endeavor I've undertaken as a fiddler.

Q: What drew you in the direction of Celtic music?

A: I've always resonated with the haunting, melancholy sounds of ancient Celtic music. I don't know if there might be something in my mother's gene pool (she was a McGregor) that transferred this passion to me, or if it's just a random preference. In addition, I think of Celtic music as the "classical" music of the fiddle world. It's not an improvised form, and it is ordered by tidy phrases and melodic shapes. And its emotional yearning runs deep. For me, it was a seamless transition from classical sensibility.

Q: What new directions is your music taking you? Any new albums in the works?

A: I'm almost finished with my third album. I've really forged into a lot of deep explorations this year which are finding their way in the new CD. I'm particularly excited by a new concept I've developed of executing bagpipe music on the violin. I had to pretty much redesign my fiddle technique in order to give a more authentic sound to this very melancholy, stirring music. So far I've been somewhat slow in producing CDs, because my approach is not so much just taking a snapshot of what I sound like -- rather, I want to create a whole world of sonic beauty and exploration which will advance the art form in general.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to say about the concert on Friday?

A: It's family-friendly, classical-music-friendly, and traditional folk-friendly.

Jamie Laval & Zac Leger

When: 8 p.m. July 31

Where: Music Building Recital Hall, Room 111, Cal State San Marcos, 333 S. Twin Oaks Valley Road, San Marcos

Tickets: $15, general; $10, students

Info: 760-599-4402 or www.brownpapertickets.com

CORRECTION: Phone number incorrect

The correct telephone number regarding the concert at Cal State San Marcos is 760-599-4402. An incorrect number was given. We apologize.