Last weekend I attended the Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival in Eastern King’s County, Prince Edward Island. It is an excellent event and if you are a fiddler or music fan interested in the Scottish style of fiddle music preserved and performed on the islands of Cape Breton and PEI, then this is the festival for you!
This event exemplifies how grass-roots community involvement produces outstanding success. There is no huge budget. The festival relies on volunteers and local support. The organisers are warm and welcoming to visitors who would like experience the rich traditional music of their beautiful province, known as “The Gentle Island”. It is the best fiddle event in the world, in my opinion, and I’ve attended many.
Proceeds from the Rollo Bay Festival are used to give free fiddle lessons year-round to local young people. Other programs and events to encourage young people are offered by the PEI Fiddlers Society. The results of these initiatives are jaw-dropping. The festival presents a youth concert on the Friday night. Local young musicians play at a level of virtuosity beyond their years.
The festival started in 1976 with the efforts of Bishop Faber MacDonald, The Eastern Kings Fiddlers Association and Joe Pete Chaisson, whose sons and grandchildren are now prominently known as traditional fiddlers . The popular young celtic-pop group Kindle , acclaimed nationally and globally, was comprised of members of the young Chaisson generation. They have an Acadian surname, but are known as Scottish style fiddlers.
The Acadian style fiddling is also presented at the festival. Fiddlers like Anastasia Desroches perform and give workshops at the event. The respect and recognition of the different fiddle styles of the vibrant traditional music scene of the island is inspiring.
I remember the first time I went to this event four years ago. The “tuning room” is a small shed to the left of the stage. The picture with this blog entry is a photo from last year's festival in the tuning room.( Tim Chaisson and Chrissy Crowley are playing fiddle with a fiddler tourist from Japan. Troy MacGillivray is listening.) After the stage performances the fiddlers converge in the room. There is no sentry at the door to exclude the hoi polloi. Everyone is allowed access. We met a fiddler named Allan MacDonald. His gracious unassuming attitude is similar to the other local PEI fiddlers. He was genuinely interested and welcoming to visitors from away. He invited me to play along with the others and it was such a fabulous memorable experience for me. His son Ward is a noted fiddler and composer and his PEI pop fiddle hit “2nd of December” was written for Allan’s birthday.
I used to manage the group “The McCarrel Sisters” who recorded a Brenda Stubbert tune Peter and Doreen Chaisson’s March on their album “Wide Awake and Dreaming” . I was so pleased to meet Peter and Doreen in person! Both are tireless workers at this festival, and they must get very little sleep. Their efforts and the efforts of the rest of the Chaisson family are much appreciated.
The reason I have written about the Rollo Bay Festival on the CeltFest Cuba blog is that it the organizers of CeltFest Cuba will be relying on volunteers and local community involvement just like the Rollo Bay Festival. Rollo Bay’s fantastic success is inspirational to us all.
This event exemplifies how grass-roots community involvement produces outstanding success. There is no huge budget. The festival relies on volunteers and local support. The organisers are warm and welcoming to visitors who would like experience the rich traditional music of their beautiful province, known as “The Gentle Island”. It is the best fiddle event in the world, in my opinion, and I’ve attended many.
Proceeds from the Rollo Bay Festival are used to give free fiddle lessons year-round to local young people. Other programs and events to encourage young people are offered by the PEI Fiddlers Society. The results of these initiatives are jaw-dropping. The festival presents a youth concert on the Friday night. Local young musicians play at a level of virtuosity beyond their years.
The festival started in 1976 with the efforts of Bishop Faber MacDonald, The Eastern Kings Fiddlers Association and Joe Pete Chaisson, whose sons and grandchildren are now prominently known as traditional fiddlers . The popular young celtic-pop group Kindle , acclaimed nationally and globally, was comprised of members of the young Chaisson generation. They have an Acadian surname, but are known as Scottish style fiddlers.
The Acadian style fiddling is also presented at the festival. Fiddlers like Anastasia Desroches perform and give workshops at the event. The respect and recognition of the different fiddle styles of the vibrant traditional music scene of the island is inspiring.
I remember the first time I went to this event four years ago. The “tuning room” is a small shed to the left of the stage. The picture with this blog entry is a photo from last year's festival in the tuning room.( Tim Chaisson and Chrissy Crowley are playing fiddle with a fiddler tourist from Japan. Troy MacGillivray is listening.) After the stage performances the fiddlers converge in the room. There is no sentry at the door to exclude the hoi polloi. Everyone is allowed access. We met a fiddler named Allan MacDonald. His gracious unassuming attitude is similar to the other local PEI fiddlers. He was genuinely interested and welcoming to visitors from away. He invited me to play along with the others and it was such a fabulous memorable experience for me. His son Ward is a noted fiddler and composer and his PEI pop fiddle hit “2nd of December” was written for Allan’s birthday.
I used to manage the group “The McCarrel Sisters” who recorded a Brenda Stubbert tune Peter and Doreen Chaisson’s March on their album “Wide Awake and Dreaming” . I was so pleased to meet Peter and Doreen in person! Both are tireless workers at this festival, and they must get very little sleep. Their efforts and the efforts of the rest of the Chaisson family are much appreciated.
The reason I have written about the Rollo Bay Festival on the CeltFest Cuba blog is that it the organizers of CeltFest Cuba will be relying on volunteers and local community involvement just like the Rollo Bay Festival. Rollo Bay’s fantastic success is inspirational to us all.
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