Freewill Folk Society presents Old Time Fiddle Festival

Folk music players and fans from around the region will converge in Lewiston on Friday evening and Saturday, Sept. 12-13, for the first annual Old Time Fiddle Festival. Featuring respected musicians from Maine, New Hampshire, Nova Scotia and Ireland, the festival’s workshops, mini-concerts and a contradance will be held on campus, while a Saturday evening concert by the band Beòlach takes place at nearby Lewiston Middle School.

Schedule information appears below. Admission to the full festival costs $15 for the general public and $10 for seniors and students. Entry to only Friday evening’s contradance is $6 and $3, and Saturday evening’s Beòlach concert costs $10 for all. For tickets and additional information, please call (207) 563-8953 or e-mail.

In addition to Beòlach, a young Celtic band rooted in the same Cape Breton scene that produced fiddle star Natalie MacMaster, festival participants include fiddlers Tommy Peoples, from Ireland, and Nat Hewitt, an eclectic player from New Hampshire. Musicians familiar from Maine’s folk-dance scene include pianist-accordionist Doug Protsik and local favorites Wake the Neighbors, who will be joined by caller John McIntyre at the contradance.

In addition to fiddle, the 19 festival workshops and concerts explore piano, accordion, banjo, mandolin, pipes, guitar, pocket instruments such as spoons and harmonica, and even step-dancing.

Sponsored by the college’s Freewill Folk Society, the festival has been organized by two students from Maine as a “celebration of North American traditional music,” explains Aaron Putnam, a senior from Mapleton. His co-organizer is junior Julia Plumb, of Nobleboro.

Putnam says, “American music is so incredible because it is a conglomeration of so many different styles from everywhere throughout the world. The festival celebrates this diversity in the music that we love and that brings us all together to dance and jam and have a great time.”

The festival begins with the contradance at 8:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave. It continues from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday with workshops and concerts in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell Street. Finally, the Beòlach concert is slated for 7 p.m. at Lewiston Middle School, 75 Central Avenue.

Beòlach takes its name from a Gaelic word for “lively youth.” The six-member band plays Cape Breton, Scottish and Irish tunes on two fiddles, piano, pipes and whistles, drums and guitar; step-dancing, too, is part of its energetic show. Emerging from an impromptu session at a festival in 1998, the band has performed in North America and Europe, and released its eponymous first album in 2001.

The student-run Freewill Folk Society strives to promote awareness of the traditional folk arts through a variety of events, including monthly contradances with Wake the Neighbors.