Mairi Rankin from Mabou NS will be in Nanaimo for one night only, Friday May 28. She will offer a fiddle workshop at 4:30 pm: cost is $15 per person and space is limited.

At 7:30pm on the 28th Mairi will perform an intimate concert with pianist/fiddler Adrian Dolan from Victoria. Tickets are $15 and participants in the fiddle workshop get a $5 discount on concert tickets.

Email Trish to reserve space in the workshop or tickets for the concert.

Cross-Canada Fiddle Tunes Volume One (Intermediate to Advanced) is a project that Geoff Horrocks and I are working on together. Each book in the series will feature 30 essential and exciting fiddle tunes from across the country: the tunes are transcribed with suggested bowing and chord progressions, and each tune has been recorded with fiddle and piano in both slow and fast versions. There is also a separate CD containing full-speed piano accompaniment for each tune. The books feature exercises to help students increase speed, dexterity, tuning, and rhythmic accuracy as well as helpful hints about instrument care.

Cross Canada Fiddle Tunes Volume Two (Beginner to Intermediate) will be complete and ready for purchase at the end of June 2010.

The first two books will be available for purchase at the following fiddle camps this summer:

Kole Crook (Hay River), Selkirk College Fiddle Camp (Castlegar), Fiddleworks (Salt Spring Island), Kenosee Lake Kitchen Party (SK), Yukon Summer Music Camp (Whitehorse), and the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle Camp (Ottawa).

A website is also in the works at www.crosscanadafiddle.com

The Vancouver Island Fiddle Camp was fantastic and after spending three days teaching and playing alongside Gordon, Patti, Zav, Alex, Miriam, Geoff and Lesley I definitely experienced a bit of withdrawal. Plans are already underway for 2011. Check out web.me.com/nanaimofiddlers for updates as they become available.

During the month of March I was involved in several performances with Geoff Horrocks and Patti Lamoureux. Such fun to play with these incredible musicians ..... hopefully there will be many more shows for us in the future!

As we move into May I will be adjudicating fiddle and strings classes at music festivals in Campbell River and Sechelt. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing a lot of wonderful young students in these two communities.

The teaching year is winding down again for me, which signals the beginning of the busy summer camp season. This year I'll be at 5 camps (Gavin Lake fell through this year, which is a big disappointment) including Whitehorse, Hay River, Fiddleworks on Salt Spring Island, and Castlegar.

Perhaps more exciting is the imminent release of some fabulous new fiddle books put together by Geoff Horrocks and myself. The first and second volumes will be available for purchase this summer. Once we have them in hand I will post purchasing information here on the site.

So, check out my calendar and see if I'll be teaching at a fiddle camp near you this summer. If not, I'm always open to offering workshops in communities in and around southwestern BC (or farther afield!) and you can contact me directly to enquire about that.

See you at camp!

I depart for Yellowknife on December 6, to join Zav RT on a 10-day teaching tour around the Northwest Territories. I'm looking forward to seeing all the fiddlers again and meeting some new ones as well. After Christmas I head north again for the Fort Simpson Jamboree and a teaching tour in the Nahanni Bute region. At this rate, I'll be moving to the north soon (hmmm, not a totally unattractive thought....).