| NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS:
This is Gregor Borland's tour week. Check out the dates below for -
If you like the Monday night band, there's still time to sign up for the N.H. Highlands!
Marianne Taylor's website is www.caringbridge.org/visit/mariannetaylor1 (click on My Story). Thanks to her family for gracefully keeping us informed.
Still working on the book. Aonghas Grant's book that is. We're just finishing up the last corrections. It's nice to have page numbers and a tune index now, makes it seem real. Not quite time to hold our breath, but getting close!
Looking ahead just a bit, think Games. Highland Games that is. See September 19-21 below. You may have heard of the Fiddle Village. But the Fiddle Village can be YOU. Just get in touch with me to establish the lines of communication and we can all party together, perhaps potluck suppers, sessions, hanging out, being cool. Keep up with the latest news during the weekend, when sometimes it's hard to stay in touch. Yes, just email or call me and we can all be in the Fiddle Village of the Mind.
Scottish Country Dancing at the Games will be especially great this year. Visibility and excitement! The Demonstration Team has performance slots in the Biiiiig Tent, and the Competition Building will be SCD Home for the weekend - classes at various levels, fiddle & dance sessions. And check out the Saturday night Loon Mountain Assembly, with the rare and dazzling pairing of Hanneke Cassel on fiddle and Barbara MacDonald Magone on piano. Do NOT give this a miss!
The Entry Forms for the Scottish Fiddle Competitions are now up on the N.H. Highland Games website. The forms can be downloaded from HERE. Bonnie Rideout is always one of the fave fiddle judges around, and we haven't seen her here for a while. Polish up those tunes and get yourself there.
The Sponsor forms for the Scottish Fiddle Competitions are also available. Go HERE for more information, and contact Bob Schecter for the forms, at bartscriv doink rcn.com, or phone him at 508-820-7789. There are probably still a few hours or a day or two and you can get your (or your group's or your honoree's) name into the program. It would be lovely to pack the Sponsor listing in the program with all of us'n! If we can get more sponsors, we can plan on getting a judge from Scotland every other year, and could take on the return of the U.S. Nationals down the road. Having the U.S. Nationals in New England has made a HUGE difference in the Scottish music and dance community and it would be a Good Thing again.
Scottish FIRE, the national Scottish fiddle organization, has a new website - go to www.scottishfire.org for all sorts of information, including - ta da ta da - the U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Competitition. It WILL be happening this year, after a one-year hiatus. See October 25-26 below.
The Scottish Fiddlers of Los Angeles have released their CD! It's all here -- Bagpipes, songs, harp and dulcimer solos with the fiddle orchestra. Traditional and newly written tunes. Reels, jigs, airs and strathspeys. Download the pretty flier HERE and give it a listen.
Emerald Rae and Flynn Cohen are hosting a great session EVERY Tuesday night at John Harvard's Brew House. See below under RECURRING EVENTS and hope to see you there!
Scholarships: Most of the deadlines for 2008 have passed, but we should be thinking about next year even now. "There are several scholarships available for students of Scottish Arts, of all ages. Please know that lessons, workshops, dance exams, music & dance camps, etc are fundable." Some scholarships to look for are: The Evelyn M.E. Murray Scholarship (due in April), Clan Munroe, St Andrews Society of Maine, The Bertha MacDonald Scholarship (due in March), The St Andrews Society of Massachusetts (due April), The Strathspey & Reel Society of New Hampshire, and the Boston Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.
I'm still on Sabbatical from teaching fiddle lessons. (I miss it a lot! Hopefully I'll be back next Fall.) But there are two additional fiddle teachers now available - Emerald Rae is back from Scotland, and Kimberley Fraser is here for the 2007-2008 year. I urge all interested fiddlers to take advantage of this huge opportunity while they are teaching in this area. I'll put you in touch with them if you wish!
DOINK !! For email addresses listed below, take the indicated email address and replace the " doink " with the usual sign, so junkmail doink yahoo.net becomes junkmail@yahoo.net. Hopefully this will help avoid the email trolls.
Beth Murray's Email List: Beth does the members of the Boston Branch RSCDS family a great service with regular emails about news and events. Anyone can sign up, and Beth sends out an email about once a week, or as necessary. Contact Beth at bethpiano doink rcn.com if you'd like to be on this distribution list. Highly recommended!
For more info on these and more New England Scottish Country Dance events, check with the Boston Branch RSCDS newsletter "The Tartan Times" (deadlines Feb 1, Apr 1, Jun 1, Aug 1, Oct 1, Dec 1), the Boston Branch RSCDS website, and the Inter-city Scot. For more folk events, be sure to regularly check the Music for Robin website. Billy Hockett does a wonderful service both for performing artists, and for their audiences, and it's a hard job to get the word out to all the right people. Also check out Club Passim, NEFFA, Springstep, CDSS, and other traditional music and dance links listed on our Links page. In Susan Worland's immortal first words, "Let's go out!" In so doing, we create memories and stories, and keep the traditional bloodlines circulating.
To see Old Events dating back to August 2005, click HERE. To see Recurring Events (Friday nights at the Canadian-American Club, the Boston Scottish Fiddle Club, the Gaelic Club, the Strathspey & Reel Society of N.H., Third Thursdays in Falmouth, Fox Library Sessions), click HERE |
Every Friday Night, 8 pm: The Ceilidh at the Canadian-American Club is the place to be! You never know who might drop in from 'down' home, and can't help but have a smile on your face listening to the masterful fiddle of Ludger Lefort and others. Canadian-American Club, 202 Arlington St, Watertown, Mass. Website: CAC.
Every Other Saturday Or So, 3:30 - 6:30 pm: Arlington Traditional Music Sessions. All acoustic instruments, musical traditions and levels welcome. About every other week at the Fox Library, corner of Mass. Ave. & Cleveland St, East Arlington, Mass. These sessions are really great and the Fox Library is a special place. Dates for Winter-Spring 2008: February 23, March 8, March 22, April 12, May 10, May 31, June 14. For information, email Laura at lbleib doink gis.net.
1st Sunday of the Month, 2-7 pm: Boston Scottish Fiddle Club. Monthly 1st-Sundays meetings include workshops, jamming, performance, refreshments. Location: the Pleasant Street Congregational Church, 75 Pleasant St, Arlington, Mass. Info: contact Anne Kaufman at am.kaufman doink verizon.net or go to the website at BSFC. Dates for 2007-08: Oct 7, Nov 4, Dec 7, Jan 6, Feb 3, Mar 2, Apr 7, May 4, Jun 1.
3rd Sunday of the Month, 3-7 pm: The Gaelic Club, at the Canadian-American Club, 202 Arlington St, Watertown. Come play, dance, listen, visit, have a beer/tea/refreshments; group jam at the beginning and end. Very informal and real. Usually 3rd Sunday of the month, Sept-June. Info: email Peggy Morrison at margaret.morrison doink comcast.net. Dates for 2007-08: Oct 21, Nov 18, Dec 16, Jan 20, Feb 17, Mar 16, Apr 21, May 18, Jun 22. No meetings July, August, September.
Last Sunday of the Month, 1-5 pm: The Strathspey & Reel Society of New Hampshire. Gatherings take place on Sundays, at the Annichiaricho Music Theater, Thompson St at S. Main, Concord, N.H., potluck refreshments, all welcome, FREE! Comfortable theater seats for listening, lots of room on the stage for our large group. Sessions include teaching of current tunes, playing through (with & without sheet music) of repertoire & request tunes. Session dates for 2007: Sep 30, Oct 28, Dec 28. The annual gala concert is the Sunday of Thanksgiving Weekend in the Concord Auditorium, Concord, N.H.
Every Tuesday, 8-11 pm: Celtic Music Session, hosted by Emerald Rae and Flynn Cohen. "Your favorite tunes at your favorite Brew Pub." All instruments, levels and styles welcome. At John Harvard's Brew House, 33 Dunster St, Cambridge, Mass.
3rd Thursday of the Month, 5-7 pm: Johnson String Instrument and Falmouth Fiddlers present "Third Thursday" Fiddling Sessions. All are welcome! Dates for 2007: Sep 20, Oct 18, Nov 15, Dec 20. Johnson String Instrument on the Cape, 49 N. Main St, Falmouth, Mass., 508-495-5551.
RECURRING EVENTS:
For Past Events, click HERE.
