About the Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club

Musical Director: Judy Turner

The Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club is a group of fiddle fans meeting monthly to play tunes - old and new - from Scotland and the Scottish diaspora.

Fiddlers as young as 8 and adults as old as 78 play together in rehearsals and have recorded 4 CDs, their latest CD "Gates of Gold" winning several awards.

The Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club has had 2 successful tours - a 2 week tour of New Zealand in 2005 and a 10 day tour of Tasmania in 2008. They will be touring New South Wales in September 2010. See our NEWS and GIGS pages for details. On their wish list is a tour of Scotland and Canada - if you would like to sponsor them Contact Judy Turner !!!

The Club is open to all comers providing they play the fiddle at least a bit, and meets monthly (3rd Sunday of the month) at St Aidans Uniting Church, North Balwyn, Victoria Australia.
Contact Judy for more information about the Club.

List of Tunes played by the MSFC click here

Click on the links below, or scroll down the page for more...

Achievements
Background
Invitation
Importing a Fiddle Club to a festival near you

Achievements

The Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club twelve years later has the following achievements to its name:

Performances at Port Fairy Folk Festivals, the National Festivals, and Brunswick Festivals - supporting Alasdair Fraser and Tony McManus, Jennifer & Hazel Wrigley and Chris Duncan
Performances at many Highland Gatherings and St Andrews Day and Burns Day celebrations
Performances for Scottish Country Dancing, and for community concerts in church halls and community centres
Incorporation - a real Committee, looking after its own finances and future
Recording its first CD "Red Hot Scots" with soloists Chris Duncan, David South and Neil Adam
Selling about 2000 copies of that CD
Sponsoring our members to take part in fiddling schools at the Easter School (Canberra) Celtic Music Under the Mountains/ Southern cross and Valley of the Moon (California).
Sponsoring workshops with visiting fiddle masters including Alasdair Fraser, Martin Hayes, Ronan Martin, Jamie McLennan, Anna Wendy Stevenson, Gregor Borland, Chris Duncan, Catherine Fraser, Verona Burgess and The Swingin' Fiddles.
Running fiddling weekends in the North East (Benalla / Mansfield) for th MSFC and NESSIE every 2nd year since July 2001.
Hosting an annual tune writing competition
Recording our 2nd album "reel cool" with soloists Eric Bogle, David South, Neil Adam and Corinne Strating in June 2002
Releasing that album with launches at the Celtic Club, Melbourne and The Ringwood Folk Club, in October 2002
Selling about 2000 copies of that CD to date
regular appearances at Port Fairy, Brunswick, National and other Folk Festivals
New Zealand tour September 2005
Recording our 3rd album "a long way from home " with soloists Chris Duncan, Alex Legg, Jenny Thomas, Neil Adam and the Hawthorn City Pipe Band in 2006
Releasing that album with launches at Port Fairy Folk Festival and the Brunswick Music Festival, 2006
Selling over 1000 copies of that CD
Touring Tasmania in 2008
Recording our 4th album "gates of gold" featuring Chris Duncan, Richard Klein, Bec Rigby, Gus Rigby, Catherine Strutt and Louisa, Lucy, Rowena and Ruth Wise in 2008
In memory of Patricia Gilmour, a much loved member of the MSFC.
Launching that album at The Hawthorn Town Hall, Dec 2008
Winning "Australian Folk CD of the Year 2009" for that album
WInning 2 Tamworth Golden Fiddle Awards:
-Best CD by a Band featuring Fiddlers
-Best Fiddle Composition for the MSFC Originals Set (Pria, Matt & Judy)
Celebratory performance "Golden Fiddles" with the Davidson Brothers at Kew Renaissance Theatre, April 2010

Background - written by Judy Turner

I came back from living in Boston (Mass.) in 1995 and one of the things I was very keen to do was get a fiddle club going that would enable me to keep playing the great tunes I had learned with Ed Pearlman and the Boston Scottish Fiddle Club. I liked the idea of a group that was open to everyone, as the Boston group was, but which let kids and adults learn together, whatever their playing standard.

I was partly inspired by my experience as a violin teacher in some western suburbs (Melbourne) schools where the ethos was not conducive to kids learning violin, and where I could get better results introducing the students to folk fiddling through a band which did real gigs, the "Incredible Western Region String Band".

Performing at the Spiegeltent, Melbourne

Recording the second CD 'reel cool' 'live' in Melbourne with The Canterbury Tongan Choir
( RL Stevenson's 'Sing Me A Song'October 2002)

The second CD "reel cool" was released in October 2002. One of the great things about the club is the putting together of keen amateurs with semi professional and professional players, and the creation of a group which can give concert performances of the highest standard. It has been a great motivator for players of all standards to have the chance to play at Australia's biggest folk festivals and to record with established "names" from the Australian folk scene. This juxtaposition of old and young, beginners and professionals, makes the club something pretty unique in the folk world, we think.

Eric Bogle with the Fiddle Club at The Australian National Folk Festival, 2003

Chris Drever from Scottish band Fine Friday joins the Fiddle Club, and Judy on the singing saw, for an amazing recitation of Stairway to Heaven at the 2003 Canberra Festival!

Invitation

The Club is growing steadily and though we are always sad to say goodbye to departing players, we always welcome new ones. We take part each year in the national Scottish Fiddle Rally (thanks to the support of the National Folk festival, held in Canberra, every Easter) and we make application each year to various other festivals. The group will continue to sponsor members' involvement in fiddling workshops and learning opportunities as they come up. It will continue to encourage tune writing and "sideways" learning by giving the good players teaching opportunities. If you have a fiddle and can play a bit, come and join us on the 3rd Sunday of any month from 2pm - 5pm - at St Aidan's in Duggan Street, North Balwyn.

Importing a Fiddle Club near you

I am frequently asked about how to start up a club like ours, and a number of folk festivals and community festivals have included a number of Fiddle Club workshops, teaching sessions and concert performances as part of their programs. Email me for information about how to do this. Basically, the theory is for me to work with a group of local fiddle players and help turn it into a concert performance. Festivals such as The National Folk Festival, Geelong Celtic Festival, Fairbridge Festival have included this in their programs.

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