The magic of Celtic music drew hundreds of people to the Rockwood Pavilion last Friday for a stellar concert by teachers and a few students of the Celtic Music Camp held July 10 to 14 in Roberts Creek. The full house audience whistled and cheered to hear such favourites as the local Coast String Fiddlers (CSF) who opened the show and the music of visiting instructors from all parts of Canada and Scotland.
"We're all pretty tired," said organizer Ann Law, "but the energy level in this building should lift us up again."
The Celtic Music School, popularly known as fiddle camp, is now in its sixth year and registered 200 students who came from all over the world. Many Americans, some Scottish and even a visiting Canadian-born family from Russia chose to vacation at the camp while learning the fiddle, keyboards, (including accordion), harp, cello, guitar, pennywhistle, Scottish dancing and, for the first year it has been offered, the flute.
The collective strains of many instruments could be heard at any given moment during the intensive classroom sessions of the Roberts Creek Elementary School. In one session run by Scottish musician and composer Gordon Gunn, students were learning to work as a band. In 35 minutes they had learned a completely new tune, all by ear. Down the hall, cello teacher Christine Hanson, originally from Edmonton and now living in Scotland, led her students through their paces, while in the library, former Coast String Fiddler-turned-teacher Danny Hart showed the intermediate young people lessons in technique. Hart and another teacher, Chelsea Sleep, have both grown up with the CSF and showed such ability that they are now teaching. Sleep directs three of the youngest groups affiliated with the CSF, while Hart, now in Vancouver studying to be a paramedic, was called back to teach when fiddle camp enrollment skyrocketed."The fiddle classes always fill up fast," said Law, and she should know. She's spent 11 years with the CSF and has worked with the Celtic Music School since its inception. She and a host of volunteers run the show with many of the adults taking vacation time from their regular jobs to participate.
The blend of musicians on stage at Rockwood in their final Friday evening performance could not be beat. Ian Lowthian, accordion and bandleader, drew James Law on stage to play drums, while he showed how versatile an instrument the accordion could be. The music was a jazz Celtic fusion with overtones of klezmer that spiralled far beyond its border country roots.
Canadian fiddling legend Oliver Schroer performed with Sharlene Wallace on harp, Hanson on cello, Nuala Kennedy on flute and Lowthian on accordion in a blend that dazzled.
Schroer's first solo tune was the night's winner. He had once walked the lengthy Camino de Santiago trail, an ancient pilgrim route in France and Spain. Schroer played a haunting melody he had composed while walking and had honed while playing in the centuries-old churches of each town. The result was magic.
Later in the show, Schroer played a duet with another Canadian fiddle master, Gordon Stobbe, who now teaches in Nova Scotia. The tune, their own composition, couldn't have been farther from the delicate melody of the pilgrim trail. Crawdads and Perogies had a driving beat punctuated by a kind of intermittent grunt/hiccup. It was a sure crowd pleaser that revealed the diversity of these two outstanding artists.
The concert was packed with highlights: the pure voice of Mairi Campbell, a fiddle teacher who embraces Scotland's rich ballad heritage, the blend of guitarist Chris Coole and fiddler Erynn Marshall who has recently moved to the Coast from Toronto, and the evening's stellar climax. In an extraordinary move, Canadian fiddler Daniel Lapp closed the show by pulling apart his violin bow, loosening the hairs and letting the now slack bow skate over the strings. It produced a hypnotic sound to accompany his gentle singing on the ballad Bee's Wing.
The concert will be seen on Coast Cable community programming in the near future.
