Community Fiddle Orchestra to hold “Little Christmas Concert”

by Jeff Green

Why hold a Christmas concert in January?

Either because you celebrate Christmas on January 6 as the Orthodox churches do, or because you are the Blue Skies Community Orchestra.

At one time the orchestra held their Christmas concert on the Saturday or Sunday before Christmas, but one year, this being southern Ontario, an ice storm hit on the day of the concert. Instead of canceling completely until the following Christmas, the orchestra booked the Maberly Hall for the first Sunday in January, and through word of mouth and some frantic postering, a crowd came out to hear Christmas music two weeks after Christmas.

Not only was it a large crowd, it was an appreciative crowd, and it led the orchestra to switch the date of their Little Christmas concert on a permanent basis.

So, on January 3, 2016 at the Maberly hall, everyone is invited to extend the holiday musical season from 2 – 5 pm.

The Blue Skies Fiddle Orchestra, as well as their intermediate and beginner orchestras, will be playing. Also the “Unspoken Rests”, a group of talented young orchestra members who have taken on some of the classical repertoire, will perform. Rounding out the entertainment are the “Lanarky Fiddlers Guild”, who were formerly known as the Heritage Fiddle Orchestra.

The orchestras will perform seasonal favorites, among many others.

Admission is $5 and refreshments will be available.

The Blue Skies Music Festival is known for its variety of music, tie-dyed everything, and workshops about subjects such as Appalachian music, Yoga Nidra (sleeping yoga), Thai head massage, and making ice cream.

But this year, in addition to stand-out performances by Swing (fresh from the closing ceremonies at the Pan Am games), folkie Karen Savoca, East Coaster fiddler and guitarist Tim Chaisson, funksters with message Digging Roots, folk/bluegrass veteran Shari Ulrich, and the inimitable Washboard Hank, the festival was all about garbage.

Zero garbage that is. After years of efforts to encourage composting and recycling, working with the Central Frontenac Waste Management Department and Bill Everett from Bee Sanitation, the festival decided this year that it would offer only comprehensive recycling and composting collection. Campers and day visitors to the festival were called upon to minimize their waste and bring whatever could not be recycled home with them. The garbage-free policy extended beyond visitors to the festival, which prepares food for festival goers and performers, and operates a main stage and workshop areas for up to 2,000 people.

“This year I picked up two bags of garbage from Blue Skies,” said Bill Everett. “When I first started working with them they already had recycling in place, but there were 350 bags of garbage as well. They've really done well.”

Everett will be back later this week to pick up recycling, and all liquor and beer containers were collected and returned for refund to benefit the Guatemala Stove Project. There will be a lot of compost as well, but the garbage is down to the amount a family could produce in a week in pre-recycling days.

“The Township of Central Frontenac, like most municipalities, has a waste disposal problem. For as long as I've done recycling and garbage at Blue Skies the township has been worried about landfill space, looking for ways to divert waste from landfills and pricing landfill usage appropriately,” said Matt ???, who convinced the rest of the festival organizers that the zero garbage policy should be put in place.

He explained the Central Frontenac recycling rules to the festival organizers and visitors and offered some tips as well, and waited to see what would happen.

“It helps us all to become more aware of the simple things we can do to reduce our impact in our day-to-day lives,” he said.

By going from 350 bags “over the hill” to just two, the Blue Skies Festival is now part of the solution to Central Frontenac Township's waste issue.

It was the trip of a lifetime for the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra when they visited Prince Edward Island from July 15 to 22.

In their 16 years together as an orchestra they have never attempted anything like this. The logistics were staggering. The 37-member orchestra is made up mostly of fiddle players, but there is a violist, a cellist, a bassist and guitarists as well, and all of their instruments needed to be transported.

Since it is an all-ages group, with members ranging in age from under 10 to over 75, the trip was a family affair. In addition to the musicians, families (parents, mates and children in some cases) came along to soak up the atmosphere.

Some traveled by plane to PEI, and others drove, making a family camping trip out of it. Since the orchestra is also based on a pay-as-you-can philosophy, the group spent 18 months fundraising to cover many of the collective costs and to subsidize some members as well. Through bake sales, concerts, grants, busking, and even a Kickstarter campaign, $30,000 was raised.

By the time the planes, vans and automobiles all landed at the Ski Lodge (the hill was never found) next to a potato field on Harmony Road not far from the eastern-most point of Prince Edward Island on a warm evening on July 15, it was a logistical miracle in itself. Surely the trip itinerary would ensure a relaxing week on sunny Prince Edward Island beaches, eating seafood, punctuated by a performance or two and workshops by some of the best musicians on the island.

And it went sort of like that - minus the sunny beach time.

First off, the weather turned windy, then more windy, and by the time the rains came, as those orchestra members who were tenting on the ocean found out, it came in a horizontal fashion, more of a storm at sea than a rain shower.

By the next morning (all the people survived but some tents were in need of repairs) the weather was sunny but the winds were still up. The orchestra met to rehearse that afternoon and then played their first concert in one of the community halls. There was something different about the performance on that night for the orchestra, however. It was partly due to the work they have done under Orchestra Director Cindy McCall over the last three years or so, adding a rhythm section to the orchestra and bringing some talented young musicians along to join with the solid corps of long time members who have remained in place. On top of that, McCall has added new repertoire, using her own arrangements that were tailored for the ensemble. The final piece of the puzzle was the effort put in by the orchestra as they prepared to bring their music to Prince Edward Island, where fiddling is a way of life.

The confidence, the timing, the tone, everything that the orchestra played that night had more musicality than ever before. They had arrived.

The next day the orchestra played at noon next to a lobster shack on the causeway between Souris and Rollo Bay. It was still windy. The members couldn't hear each other, and some of them were a bit the worse for wear after a party the night before, but the players persevered and the view of Souris harbour was spectacular.

The focus of the trip then switched to the Rollo Bay Fiddle festival, which was one of two key reasons for the orchestra deciding to come to PEI, instead of other east coast fiddle hot-beds such as Cape Breton or Newfoundland. The festival is held in a small, bowl-like valley. The wooden stage has seen the best of PEI style fiddling, both the eastern variety that revolves around the Chaisson family, and the more Acadian styles from the west, as well as a few from in-between. The most common combination on stage is a fiddler or two, a piano and a guitar, and many of the players can play at least two or all three instruments without skipping a beat – and they are fast beats.

The orchestra came on as a special guest, and they played their Ontario tunes on this occasion, not wanting to venture into some of the PEI numbers they have learned.

The rains came the next day. Literally and metaphorically. The orchestra played a fiddle service at the South Lake Church, just off from the East Point Lighthouse that separates The Atlantic Ocean from the Strait of Northumberland. They performed some tunes they learned for the occasion, including “I'll Fly Away”, and member Linda Grenier, who performs professionally with the Long Sault Trio and as a solo act, sang the Gillian Welch song “By the Mark”.

As some members were off seeing the sights and others headed over to the Rollo Bay Festival, a cold rain set in.

At the festival, Peter Chaisson, the patriarch of the fiddling Chaisson family, was working with other festival organizers to set up indoors, when he suffered a heart attack and died.

It shut the festival down and devastated the community, the orchestra included. Orchestra members met together and talked, and many went back to the festival grounds for an impromptu wake as family and friends did the only thing they could do under the circumstances, play a few of Peter Chaisson’s favourite tunes.

The next day the orchestra split into groups and took part in workshops at cottages and an artists’ retreat. The other reason the orchestra went to PEI is that one of its members, Finlay Mullaly, lives in Perth most of the year but hails from Prince Edward Island and has a family cottage on the ocean just kilometres from Souris and Rollo Bay. He hosted and helped organize the workshops. Since Peter Chaisson and his nephew JJ were supposed to be workshop leaders there were extra challenges, but the community of musicians came through and the workshops were a great success.

On the final night of the trip, the Fiddle Orchestra played a 90-minute concert at St. Margaret's Hall, near the Neufrage Harbour.

The acoustics in the small hall are superb, the orchestra was playing its fifth concert in six days, and they were primed.

It was their best performance ... ever.

The 42nd Blue Skies Music Festival is all set for another magical weekend. The volunteer-run festival is set up on a piece of land rich with history near Clarendon, off Road 509.

Although camping passes have all been sold out, day passes for Saturday and Sunday, August 1 and 2 are still readily available. Day pass tickets sell for $35 at Tara Foods and Brian's Record Option in Kingston, Shadowfax in Perth, and Moondance Music in Peterborough. Sadly for Ottawa residents, the Folklore Centre is closed and will therefore no longer be selling tickets.

However, day passes will also be sold at the front gates all day Saturday and Sunday. The gate opens at 8am as the incredibly varied workshops begin early in the day.

Saturday the music begins at 3pm with opening act Shari Ulrich followed by the infamous Blue Skies square dance. Next, Washboard Hank & the Wringers with Sweet Muriel will hit the stage at 7pm followed by Catherine MacLellan at 8pm, Tim Chaisson at 9pm, David Celia at 10pm and Samantha Martin and the Delta Sugar finishing off the night off at 11pm.

The Sunday schedule starts in the morning again. At 10:00 the annual Blue Skies parade will kick off the day, followed by musical and holistic workshops. From unblocking your dreams to plant identification, and from ukelele orchestras to Tim Chaisson sharing the east coast music scene, there is bound to be something for everyone.

There will be a showcase featuring the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra at 3:00 followed by a square dance at begins at 4:00. The evening's music starts with the Blue Skies Community Choir led by Suba Sankaran and Dylan Bell, followed by The Young Novelists at 7:45, Karen Savoka at 8:45, The Bombadils at 9:45, Jaffa Road at 10:45. Finishing off the festival will be SWING at 11:45pm.

The 42nd Blue Skies Music Festival promises non-stop entertainment, friendly faces and new experiences. Bring an instrument if you so desire, but most importantly, bring your open ears. For further information, go to blueskiesmusicfestival.ca

Tina Bailey, Executive Director of the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area (CFKA) says the organisation, which provides grants for community organizations on a twice-annual basis, has been seeking to raise its profile outside of Kingston.

At the announcement for its latest crop of 24 grants, for a total value of $106,000, a healthy number went to organizations outside of Kingston, most of them in Frontenac County.

The list includes the largest grant given out, $12,200 to the Central Frontenac Railway Museum, which will be used to provide half the resources to construct a railway-themed play structure at Railway Park in Sharbot Lake. Slated for installation in 2016, the structure will consist of a steam engine, coal car and ramp surrounded by a safe engineered play surface.

Other grants include $4,000 to the Elbow Lake Environmental Centre (ELEC), which is located off the Perth Road, to fund an outreach assistant this coming fall. This will allow ELEC to encourage all local high schools to visit the center and experience their expanded selection of curriculum-based programs.

A related grant, for $7,000, is going to the Frontenac Stewardship Foundation. The money will be used to set up an invasive species demonstration at the ELEC. This partnership will provide the community with the tools and information to combat the growing problem of invasive species. Some of the target species in question include Purple Loosestrife, Dog Strangling Vine, Lilac, Zebra Mussels, Emerald Ash Borer and many more.

The Howe Island Garden Buds have received $2,393 for the Howe Island Community Development Project, which will be an enduring legacy on the island. The enriched environment will highlight the natural surroundings, beautify the island and develop public access to the waterfront where the Bateau Channel meets the St. Lawrence River.

Finally, the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra received $5,425 to support an outreach exchange trip for the orchestra to the Rollo Bay Music festival in King’s County, Prince Edward Island, this July. The festival gathers renowned Celtic, Acadian, and Olde Tyme Fiddlers from across the Maritimes.

With over $31,000 of the $106,000 in grants, Frontenac County projects have been well supported this time around.

“It really helps us to promote the opportunities we offer, particular outside of Kingston, to receive such a breadth of applications from projects in Frontenac County. We certainly hope this will help us get our message out and enhance our profile in those communities,” said Tina Bailey.

The CFKA is a local, independent foundation affiliated with 191 other community foundations in Canada and worldwide, an association which now includes over 1,600 members.

“We take a broad view of community , funding projects in all areas from heritage preservation to children's mental health but we are looking to fund more projects that address identified community needs ,” said Bailey, who referred to the recent launch of a new Smart & Caring Communities Fund to further those efforts.

The foundation is always active. As soon as they were finished celebrating recipients of the spring grants at the May 14 announcement, they began preparing for the next application deadline ON September 9. They are also working towards offering some larger grants this fall, when the foundation will consider a select number of applications for between $10,000 and $25,000 for projects related to the following areas: getting started in the community, food security and community engagement..

The CFKA also produces Vital Signs, an annual report card on the health and well being of residents in Kingston, Frontenac County, Loyalist Township and Amherst Island.

Photo by Garrett Elliott  

by Cindy McCall

Maberly Hall will be filled with fiddlers and their friends on Sunday, May 3. The Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra is holding a fundraising Jam-a-thon with an open invitation to any local musician to come and play. And it’s not just for fiddlers; guitars, cello, viola, mandolin, penny whistles and the like are all welcome to join in the fun. Players obtain sponsors, collect the funds and bring them to the hall on May 3. Participants can drop in and join the jam circle anytime during the day between 1 and 6pm. Participants will have the opportunity to choose tunes (or songs) for all in the circle to play (or sing). Refreshments will be available for players throughout the day. The Jam-a-thon aim is to provide a relaxed opportunity for local musicians to have fun as they play together while raising funds for the fiddle orchestra. Supporting the orchestra will help to keep amateur music alive in the community and assist in making it affordable for anyone to learn to play the fiddle and join in the fun. To obtain a sponsor sheet contact Cindy at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 613-278-2448.

by Martina Field

The Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra has a lot to be excited about these days. The entire orchestra is going on a trip out to PEI this July.

The purpose of the trip is to learn new fiddling techniques and to immerse ourselves in the culture of PEI, as well as to share music from our area. The group hopes to perform at the Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival and to participate in workshops of fiddle, guitar, song and step-dance.

We've been fund-raising for this trip for almost a year because even though some of us can afford to pay for the cost of the trip, others cannot. And we want all of us to have the opportunity to go on this musical adventure. So we are launching a kickstarter campaign, our biggest fundraising project ever, on March 21st, at a show of local music at the Crossing Pub in Sharbot Lake. We are very happy that three bands will be donating their time to play.

Sympathy Ghost will open the night with their own brand of original Americana-style music. They are Dan Keeler and Kate Turner from Arden. They write songs about love, loss and life, channeling the melancholy of Appalachian folk and are currently working on their first full length album.

Next up is Trxtrmusic who are Jerrard and Diana Smith, newish immigrants to Tay Valley Township from Guelph via Peterborough. Diana and Jerrard play a good mix of rootsy country tunes, some blues, a bit of reggae and even a standard or two. Jerrard plays guitar, mandolin and viola and Diana accompanies with beautiful vocal harmonies.

The popular hometown band, The Feral Five, will play last with a wide variety of mostly rock'n' roll tunes that range from the 1950s to present day. They are sure to get your toes tapping, if they don't get you right up onto the dance floor. The Feral Five include Jim MacPherson, Terry Reynolds and Dennis Larocque on guitar, Gary Giller on bass and Dave Limber on drums.

The music starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are $20, available from Kate Turner 613-305-4385 and Karin Reynolds (613) 279-2114 or contact any orchestra member. The Sharbot Lake Country Inn and The Crossing will have a limited menu available for dinner before the show. Please call them at (613) 279-2198 for information and to reserve.

We've also made a cookbook with recipes from orchestra members, which will be available on the night of the show, or at the Sharbot Lake Pharmacy, The Frontenac News, and Homing Instinct in Perth. They cost $15.

Please watch for the campaign launch on kickstarter.com/canada on March 21 and help us to circulate the project until April 30.

Against all odds the annual Blue Skies in the Community “Little Christmas” concert went on at the Maberly hall on January 4 thanks to a courageous bunch of community fiddlers, their two fearless leaders and an enthusiastic group of listeners, who once again made the concert a huge success.

It was touch and go in the hours leading up to the show after the year's first fierce snow/ice storm made a mess of roads and left a number of participants housebound, including scheduled emcee Linda Grenier, who was graciously replaced by Linda Tranter.

The concert featured performances by the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra led by conductor Cindy McCall and the Celtic Heritage Fiddle Orchestra led by Carolyn Stewart. The show opened with two numbers by the Blue Skies Community Prep orchestra made up of beginner players of all ages who demonstrated in "The First Noel" and "My Darling Asleep" what they have mastered in just three months time.

New to this year's show was a performance by the newly formed youth ensemble, The Unspoken Rests, comprised of six young players who are also part of the larger community orchestra. They played six impressive numbers under the direction of McCall for what was just their second performance since they formed in September. Highlights of their set included the P.E.I. tune "Fairies at Monticello" by Bill MacDonald and the Nova Scotia favorite "Val's Dream". Look out you fiddling oldsters; these young players might just have a thing of two to teach you. The Celtic Heritage Fiddle Orchestra was up next and played a number of inspiring tunes, each introduced by different members of the group, many of whom have been playing together under the direction of Carolyn Stewart for 14 years.

They opened with "Logging Camp", a soulful sing-along and their impressive and diverse repertoire also included "Cape Breton Lullabye", and "The Grand Etang", a march that was especially spirited and punchy.

Following an intermission it was the Blue Skies Community Orchestra's time to shine. They performed a number of their favorite jigs and reels, opening with "Pigeon on the Gate", which was followed by another PEI tune called "Joe Kearney's Reel". They performed a number of classics like "Wedding Gift" and "Debbie's Waltz" plus a new tune titled "Pig Alley Rip".

The audience was lively and their thunderous applause following one especially spirited number managed to shake loose the ice and snow from the hall's roof, which added to the infectious merriment.

Come this summer members of the BSCFO hope to travel to PEI where they will have a chance to experience first hand some of the stellar fiddling talent and teachers there. They also plan to attend the annual Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival. The orchestra is currently half way to meeting their fundraising mark of $25,000, which will pay for the traveling and other expenses for the trip. A number of special fundraising events have taken place already this past year with others planned for 2015. A newly printed cook book titled “Fiddlin' in the Kitchen”, which features favorite recipes from orchestra members, is now available for $15, with over half of the proceeds going towards the planned PEI trip. Anyone wishing to purchase a cook book can contact any member of the BSCFO or call Kate Turner at 613-335-2782.

by Marily Seitz

Renowned Maritime guitarist, singer and songwriter JP Cormier will be presenting a guitar workshop in Sharbot Lake. He is the master of many instruments but is a genius on the guitar. His fingers fly with speed and precision and he leaves his audience awed by his talent. JP Cormier will be performing in the evening of November 15 at the Sharbot Lake Inn and will conduct his guitar workshop in the afternoon at the Oso Hall from 3:00 to 4:30.

Cormier’s workshops for festivals, small groups or companies are a whirlwind of information and technical delight. This master of the instrument takes the workshop audience on a journey through ‘all things guitar’. From purchase, technique and set up, to flat picking and finger-style, this workshop is an information bomb for players in any style or genre. It is for experienced guitarists with the prerequisite skills (ability to fluently play open chords, to use strumming patterns and to read guitar chord charts), who will be delighted with the content of the workshop.

Presented by Blue Skies in the Community, the JP Cormier guitar workshop will be held on Saturday, Nov. 15 from 3 to 4:30pm at the Oso Hall in Sharbot Lake. Cost is $30 for adults or $20 for students. To register for the JP Cormier workshop, or for further information, contact Marily Seitz at 613-479-2855 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

In the early 1970s, what we now call urban refugees were starting to land in Frontenac and Western Lanark County. They were young, they wore their hair long, and the local community probably didn’t know what exactly to make of them. But the newcomers proved more resilient than many thought they would be, and they were accepted, over time.

Sometime early in 1974, Oskar Graf, a luthier from Berlin, Germany by way of Toronto, who had built a home on the Clarendon Road after buying a piece of land a few year earlier, called a meeting to see if there was enough interest to organize a music festival on his property.

“We filled the house, which was a good sign,” he recalled when interviewed over the phone last week, just after the end of the 40th Blue Skies Festival. “Some of the usual suspects were there. I remember the Hales from Arden were, and the folks from Lothlorien near Ompah, and John Moffat from Brooke Valley and some others.”

A decision was made at the meeting to hold a festival on the August long weekend. “We thought it might be a one-off,” said Graf, “but it sort of took off. From those beginnings the festival was a group run event. It was never my thing; there were always a bunch of us working on it.””

Forty years later, on the Saturday night of this year’s festival, which annually draws somewhere over 2,500 people with no publicity budget whatsoever, some footage from that first festival was shown on a screen on the festival stage at dusk, as Oskar looked on from next to the stage.

One of the familiar elements to the footage was a square dance, called by Stan Dueck, who continued to call the square dance at the festival for at least another 30 years. The band was led by local fiddler Kenny Jackson of McDonalds Corners, and although there were only a few squares as compared to the dozens that danced this year on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, it looked much the same. The only discernable difference was that in the 1974 film the men were almost all shirtless, and were wearing jeans. There was not a pair of shorts in sight. The demographics of the festival were also different. Most of the people in the film were in their 20s and 30s, with young children in tow.

Nowadays Blue Skies is an all ages affair, with children a few weeks old being cared for by brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents on site.

“The other thing you might have noticed in the film was that at the top of the hill, watching the music, there were a number of local people who came out to see what was going on. That’s the same way it is now,” said Oskar Graf, “we’ve always had pretty good support from the local community, and the local council."

In the early years the festival was free and food was sold at “ridiculously low prices - you know - 15 cents for a cheese sandwich,” Oskar said, “and there was a 70s spirit to it; you know, we thought back then that we could change the world.”

Although Blue Skies and other events like it have not quite changed the world, the festival has made a real difference in the surrounding communities. The ripple effect of Blue Skies has affected communities as far-flung as Perth, Elphin/McDonalds Corners, Maberly and Verona, and down to Kingston as well. It is these connections that were influential in the founding of other festivals, groups and events as diverse as the Verona Festival and the Stewart Park Music Festival in Perth.

On an official level, Blue Skies in the Community has subsidised musical education in local schools for many years, and has been partly responsible for the renaissance of the local fiddling tradition. The Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra, now 14 years old and larger than ever, has itself spun off at least two other fiddling groups.

Over the years the festival grew, and by the late 1980s a major concern that has pre-occupied organisers ever since had come to the fore: how to handle the fact that more people want to come, and camp out at Blue Skies than can be accommodated in a limited site that is accessed by1.5-lane gravel road.

Through it all the festival has maintained a few basic tenets. It is entirely volunteer run, and there are no commercial vendors at the festival, and no craft booths at all.

“When we first talked about the festival we kind of wanted the crafts-people, and I am one of them, to have a week off from selling,” Oskar Graf said, “and besides we didn’t see that a little festival like ours would be much of a market.”

This policy has been kept up, and there are still no commercial interests at play at Blue Skies. The amount and organization of volunteer labour is extensive. There are up to 40 areas that are separately organisd, from garbage/recycling to sanitation to food preparation, security, parking, first aid, holistic and music workshops and more.

The festival is organized by a very large group of people, and although there is a core group who live locally, there are now many people involved who come from outside the area.

Another aspect of Blue Skies that sets it apart from other music festivals is the egalitarian policy towards paying musicians, the only people who do make money from the festival. Instead of spending a large amount of the festival’s budget on one or two high profile acts, each musician, from headline to side players, are paid the same amount.

Because the festival is basically sold out in advance, the musical director has a fair bit of freedom when it comes to programming. This has enabled Blue Skies to bring in music from around the world in addition to the folk, blues/jazz and Quebecois music that the Blue Skies audience expects to see and hear each year.

Oskar Graf sold the festival site to the charitable corporation that officially runs the festival about a decade ago but he still participates in the many meetings that take place each year in advance of the festival (in Blue Skies tradition, all decisions are made by consensus) and still puts in time preparing the site.

“When I look at it after all this time, I can say that Blue Skies has made me a much richer man than I would have been otherwise. Without Blue Skies I might just be a crotchety old man living in the woods making guitars. I have gained a lot from all the people I have worked with on the festival, and from everything that the festival has brought about over the years,” he said.