Packed house for “Little” Christmas Concert 2020

Craig Bakay | Jan 08, 2020

As the calendar spun to the year 2020, it also marks the 20th anniversary of the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra and last Sunday, the band got together with friends and special guests to kick things off with its annual “Little” Christmas Concert at the Maberly Hall.

In addition to the main orchestra, the afternoon also featured performances from the Beginner Orchestra, TRXTRS, the Long Sault Trio, the Slow Bow Trio and the Lanark Fiddlers Guild.

This promises to be a busy year for the orchestra, with the big event scheduled for June 13 at St. Paul’s United Church in Perth, for a mass concert.

“It’s our 20th anniversary celebration and we’re inviting everyone who’s ever been a part of the orchestra to come and play,” said conductor Cindy McCall, who’s been with the group for 10 years, after taking over from founder Carolyn Stewart. “We’ve had about 70 people reach out to us about coming.”

She said any former members can contact her at 613-278-2448 for information regarding the reunion.

“We’ve had to move to St. Paul’s because this (Maberly Hall) simply isn’t big enough,” McCall said.

Indeed, the place was packed, not only with audience but also performers as the stage spilled over into the front of the hall to accommodate the main orchestra, the intermediate group and the beginners group.

The Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra is an amateur, charitable, non-profit organization whose main sponsor is Blue Skies in the Community, the registered non-profit charitable arm of the Blue Skies Music Festival.

Besides maintaining an instrument library and providing music instruction, they perform a schools, seniors’ homes, festivals, churches, Christmas concerts and fundraisers with their fiddles, guitars, mandolins, violas, banjos, bass, piano, cello, flutes, whistles, percussion and the occasional rubber pig or croaking frog.

And speaking of croaking frogs and rubber pigs, that’s likely a reference to Lois Webster, who at 79 is one of the older members of the group and known for adding a unique aspect to the group that somewhat defies description.

“I just like doing it,” she said. “I started with Carolyn back in 2002, I think, and they haven’t kicked me out of the orchestra yet.”

It says “community” right in the title of the orchestra and to a great extent, it reflects the community, especially in terms of age representation.

At the other end of the age spectrum is conductor Lukas Reynolds who began with the beginners group at age 9 and now, at age 18, is still heavily involved, even at an age when most younger people are much more interested in rock’n’roll than jigs and reels dating back hundreds of years.

“I mean, I’m into rock but there are two sides to me,” he said. “The bottom line is that I enjoy this and I’ll probably never stop.”