Fiddle Tunes at Centrum

Preview of July 4 Afternoon Fiddle Tunes Show

On Saturday, July 4, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes welcomes you to two shows - an afternoon set at 1:30pm, and a pre-fireworks bash at 7:30pm. (If you also come to the Friday night Cajun dance, we will give you an amazing discount- the whole festival for just $33!)

Let's talk about the Saturday afternoon show: Fiddle Tunes From Across North America. If the weather is good (and it usually is!) we'll open the big balloon hangar doors at McCurdy Pavilion, which lets you enjoy the performances from your reserved seat inside, as well as on the lawn outside.

While the atmosphere is fun and relaxed, the music is truly top notch. Here's what you can expect:

• Patti and Joel Lamoureux – 3-time Canadian Grand Champion
  Patti was the first woman in the history of Canada to ever win the prestigious Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship.
  
• Kirk Sutphin and Riley Baugus – Old time music from North Carolina
  Kirk and Riley live on the same road in Surry County, North Carolina, and are the stewards of a two-hundred year tradition of Round Peak music.
  
• Jose Moreno and Jesus "Chuy" Castillo – Tex-Mex
  Don José, born in 1930, is one of the true interpreters of traditional Tejano music from the Texas-Mexico border.
• Greg and Jere Canote – Old time tunes and song
  With fiddle, banjo, ukuleles and genetically matched voices, Greg and Jere Canote bring back fun, vintage American music.
• Nightingale – Exceptional New England dance band
  Nightingale is a highly sought after New England dance and concert band. Jeremiah McLane - accordion, Keith Murphy - guitar, and Becky Tracy – fiddle.
• Special guest from the Orkney Islands

Purchase tickets online, or on the phone at 800-838-3006.

We've posted videos from many of this year's performers over on our Fiddle Tunes community site. Check it out. Here's a video of Patti Lamoureux to get you started...

Get Ready for Cajun Friday

Friday, July 3, at 7:30pm we're hosting a grand ole Cajun and Swing Dance outside McCurdy Pavilion here at Fort Worden. (We'll move it inside if it rains).

The evening will feature some of the finest Cajun musicians in America - Jesse Lege, Joel Savoy, and The Red Stick Ramblers - onstage, and YOU dancing on Littlefield Green. (Purchase tickets online.)

The Red Stick Ramblers first emerged from Baton Rouge around 1999. Even early on, their live shows were inspired and infectious, equal parts unbridled, ramshackle energy and thrilling musical precision. Up and down the Gulf Coast, the Red Stick Ramblers quickly earned a reputation as a thrilling band as appealing to elderly Cajuns as they were to college kids out for a good time. Four albums later, the Ramblers are nationally sought-after, and we're happy that they are choosing to spend the week with us.

Updates to Fiddle Tunes Faculty and Performers

We've just finished posting a complete faculty listing for the 2009 Festival of American Fiddle Tunes workshops. The listing includes our terrific tutorial staff. For those of you purchasing tickets to the Festival's performances, we've added biographical information and photos for the performers, which you can find on the performances page.

Performances at '09 Fiddle Tunes

We just posted the public performance schedule for the 2009 Festival of American Fiddle Tunes over on our performance page. The shows will take place on Friday July 3, and Saturday, July 4. They feature some spectacular artists, including 3-time Canadian Grand Champion Patti Lamoureux. Ticket sales begin on May 1.

We'll be telling you more about the artists in the weeks to come, but we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that while hearing these folks in concert is great--spending a week living and learning with them is sublime. To learn more, and to register for the weeklong Festival of American Fiddle Tunes workshop, visit our workshop page.

Full Body Music

As we get closer to De Temps Antan's dance on March 5, I'm getting asked "What does Québecois music sound like?" I'm sure there are very elegant descriptions throughout the internets (feel free to post in the comments section), but I like to think of it as full-body music. When they are in the groove, De Temps Antan uses their whole body to inhabit the music they are playing. Interestingly, the audience response is the same. Everyone moves and grooves.

Now I know this doesn't really tell you anything about the music. So here's a video that gives you a taste.

You can view more videos, and hear samples of De Temps Antan on their myspace page. Highly recommended.

...and if you care to join us, you can purchase tickets online today.

Tickets Now On Sale: De Temps Antan

Tickets are now on sale for our March 5 Quebecois dance here at Fort Worden. After seeing the audience response that De Temps Antan received during their short set at a 2008 Festival of American Fiddle Tunes concert, we are sure that the JFK Building will be nearly levitating with energy and musicianship at this performance--this is a band that knows how to get people moving. 

Please join us for this celebration of Quebecois fiddle tunes.

Purchase tickets online right now, or take your chances at the door!

Concert and Dance
Thursday, March 5, 2009
7:30pm JFK Building
$12 (general admission)
18 and under FREE

Showtime at Fiddle Tunes

Happy Independence Day! The next two days--July 4 and July 5 (2008) are filled with public performances at Fort Worden State Park.

We hope you can join us for amazing performances featuring musicians and music from across the continent and beyond.

Complete program schedules and ticket information are available on our 2008 performance page.

Fiddle Tunes Performances Coming Up!

[The Pine Leaf Boys in onstage performance]

Led by the incomparable Wilson Savoy, the Pine Leaf Boys--a Cajun/Creole band that is rising so fast they're scorching--will be leading a Cajun dance on Friday, July 4, at 7:30 pm at the Fort Worden Mule Barn Tent. Yes, there will be a bonfire and, yes, gumbo'll be for sale onsite. Tickets are ten bucks; youth eighteen and under get in free.

Information and tickets for this--and all--weekend Festival of American Fiddle Tunes shows are available by visiting our Fiddle Tunes performance page. (Watch for a Santa Claus appearance in this video at 2:48.)

Des Temps Antan - Les Pissenlits Bricoleurs

[De Temps Antan in rollickin' onstage performance]

French-Canadian roots band De Temps Antan will give a mainstage performance at McCurdy Pavilion on Friday, July 4, at 1:30 pm. The band features André Brunet (fiddle, guitar, tapping), Eric Beaudry (guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, tapping), and Pierre-Luc Dupuis (accordion, harmonica, jaw harp), all current or former members of the internationally acclaimed group La Bottine Souriante. Tickets are available by following this link or by calling Centrum at 360.385.3102, x117. Reserved seating's twenty bucks, with youth eighteen and under free with advance reservations.

De Temps Antan will follow performances that include such musicians as Wendy MacIsaac, David Maclsaac, Harold Luce, Adam Boyce, and Paul Bradley.

The music of De Temps Antan is a rich blend of traditional French-Canadian and Acadian songs, original compositions, instrumental pieces, and French-Canadian response songs, all driven by the energetic beat of French-Canadian ‘podorythmie,’ the foot-tapping that replaces drums in traditional music from Québec. The members of the band offer a fresh and vibrant perspective on the music of their ancestors—and on the joie de vivre that has come to define the music of their province.

Cornbread Nation: The Bluegrass/Americana World of Tim O'Brien

"People ask me what my hobby is, and I tell them, well, I like to cook and hang out at home or read history, but really it's music," says Tim O'Brien with a smile.

So what if that's what he's done for a living for going on three decades? And what if he became regarded as a pre-eminent Americana and bluegrass musician by doing so? "It's my hobby. And everything the hobby does feeds the repertoire," O'Brien, who will be at this year's Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, says.

At this point in his career, nearly thirty years after moving to Colorado where he would form his landmark band Hot Rize, repertoire is a major part of the Tim O'Brien story. For in addition to his own prolific and successful songwriting, this child of West Virginia and the WWVA Jamboree has never stopped mining the American music canon for great material. He's a song sponge.

Songs collect and abide in Tim O'Brien's world as comfortably as family heirlooms. They come from around the world, particularly the American South and Ireland. They morph into new ideas and new songs that update old truths about the human condition. They find expression in O'Brien's clear-as-ice voice on stages, in recording studios and at home with circles of gifted musical friends. O'Brien's relationship with songs embodies the very essence of the folk music tradition, always aware that the branches of the musical tree need sap from the roots.

O'Brien was so full of songs when he approached his latest phase of recording that they overwhelmed one album and became two. And yet with Fiddler's Green and Cornbread Nation, his original intent has remained intact.