On Sunday, May 5, Michele Amy's fiddle students and her "grand-students," her students' students, performed a two hour fiddling extravaganza at Carlyle Memorial Hall.
This year Amy had 39 of her own students and eight students, between Patrick Tinant's, Emily Klatt's, Simone Boutin's, and Aimee Poirier's students, perform for a full house.
Cathy Sproule took to the piano as an accompanist, with Patrick Tinant joining in on the guitar. Fiddle student, Jenelle Boutin, also accompanied a number of songs with a guitar after finishing her fiddling performances of the afternoon.
The talented students performed well known songs such as Flop Eared Mule, while presenting new songs as well.
"Talent comes disguised in some overalls and calls itself hard work," Amy explained.
A song able to bring many laughs to the stage was regarding young fiddler, Vashti Wardrope, who had gone to fiddle class and accidently dropped her violin. The instrument broke in two and though it was devastating at the time, became a funny story to tell; thus, the fiddlers sang a song about the incident while Vashti pulled out her broken violin to show everyone.
Quite a treat also came with a solo by Micah Walbaum with a song that she wrote with the help of her mother called the Hawai'ian Waltz.
Shoni King performed a tune on her homemade cigar box fiddle, which was quite impressive.
Also, included in the musical show was a fiddle circus which included the world's smallest fiddles, the tallest fiddle player, pretzel players, spinning players, upside down players, a water balancing fiddler, and a hula hoop fiddler. Their astonishing performances were very much enjoyed.
All of the music was phenomenal and the performance reached its goal in showcasing local fiddlers and their dedication to music.
The advanced class, now having formed a band called High Strung, performed a number of tunes for the audience just before the finale of all students playing together.
"It's important to see where they [beginner students] can go. To hear these guys [High Strung] play, they're role models to the younger ones," Amy stated.
High Strung is made up of Aimee Poirier, Emily Klatt, Emily Dubois, Patrick Tinant, and Simone Boutin.
Amy is proud of all of her student's, though she was very pleased to say Patrick Tinant had competed in the Championship Class at a Weyburn competition.
"We'll see him in the Grand Masters one year!" Amy exclaimed.
