HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2005-06-29, Page 18PAGE 18, BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, JUNE 29/30, 2005
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Anne Lederman’s story of tracking down a unique
Metis fiddler returns to Blyth Festival
After a successful run at the Blyth
Festival last summer. Anne
Lederman and Capucine Onn bring
Spirit of The Narrows back to the
Memorial Hall stage to conclude the
2005 Festival season.
Not only will Spirit of the Narrows
offer an opportunity for those who
loved the show last year to come
back but it will also allow those who
missed it get a second chance to
enjoy the unusual musical
production. It will also fit right in to
the spirit of Blyth in early September
when the town is full of fiddlers and
musicians taking part in
performances and
impromptu jam session
as part of the Huron
Pioneer Thresher and
Hobby Association
reunion.
Spirit of the Narrows
is the story of a group of
Metis fiddlers Lederman
met while in Manitoba.
A friend of Lederman’s
was there and sent her a
tape of the music and she
says it was unusual but
fascinating
“The music was very
exciting, very driving,
but it was kind of wild and
unpredictable and you couldn’t
really tell where the tunes were
going. This was just a tape of one
elderly fiddler and I had no idea
whether this was a style that people
played or if it was just some crazy
guy who lived in the bush.”
Lederman ’managed to wangle”
herself to the prairie province and
found out that it was a very old style
of playing in their community.
Lederman says this style was
fairly unknown to outsiders because
most people found it strange and the
players knew that so they didn’t play
it for anyone outside of their own
community
When Lederman first went there
she would ask them to play, “and
they would play me Orange Blossom
Special and things like that and I
would really have to encourage them
to play their own tunes, the tunes
they learned from their families and
the tunes they passed on.”
When the fiddlers believed
Lederman was actually serious
about hearing the music they
Anne Lederman (right) and Capucine Onn star in
a return of the hit Spirit of the Narrows.
eventually played their songs for her.
Lederman spent a couple of months
in the community over the course of
two years and made a lot of
recordings.
“I originally had a grant from the
National Museum to make records
and we put out a four-album set of
vinyl recordings. A couple of years
after that I still had a lot of stuff
tossing in my brain and I just started
to write down stories about the
whole experience of being there and
meeting the fiddlers and what it was
like for me to be around the Native
community.”
At first the writing was “just to get
it out of my head” but then it seemed
like it was interesting enough for her
to share so she began telling the
stories as a solo show.
“I would just sit on stage, tell the
stories and play the fiddle and it
stayed like that for years until I
approached the Festival about doing
it, maybe just as a solo show and it
was largely Eric [Coates] who
decided that we should re-work it to
be more theatrical involving
another actor and involving
actually playing some of
these characters instead of
just telling stories about
them.”
Lederman will again play
herself at the present time as
well as the Metis fiddlers
and local actor Capucine
Onn will play Lederman in
her 30s when she was first
experiencing the music.
Lederman credits acting in
The Outdoor Donnellys for
making it possible to
present her play Spirit of the
Narrows.
“Blyth has really been the only
place that I’ve ever crossed the line
from being a musician to being an
actor and I’d have to credit the
Donnellys largely for doing that,”
Lederman said.
Lederman says the Metis style of
fiddling is a blend of Celtic,
Scottish, French, American and
Native — the element that makes it
unpredictable.
“That’s the element that makes it
unpredictable because old Native
music is very different.”
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