March 20-22 Thirtieth Annual Down East Country Dance Festival. Yep, Thirtieth year! How many have been to them all? The “DEFFA Dance Fest” will be at the Mount Ararat Middle School in Topsham once again this year. Dates are Friday, Mar 20 – Saturday, Mar 21 and the Survivor’s Dance will once again be at Bowdoinham Town Hall on Sunday, Mar 22. Headliners will be Polaris with Steve Zakon-Anderson calling and LOTS of Maine acts, bands and callers. ALSO, our fearless leader, Doug Protsik, will be leading the festival orchestra playing for the contra dance at 6PM in the main hall.. All are welcome to play in the band and tunes are posted on the MFC website here... More info: https://deffa.org/festival/

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Chris Brinn taught piano accordion for a weekend at MFC several years ago. In 2020 he is BACK and will be teaching during the newly established accordion track for the June week, June 21-26. here are Chris’s own words!! – bill o.

I started playing the trumpet when I was about seven years old. I was extremely lucky that both my parents and teachers always encouraged music. Both my grandmothers played piano, and my grandfather on mother’s side (who was from Wicklow, Ireland) played in a harmonica band when he was in the army. In school though, the headmaster always played guitar and had us all singing during weekly assemblies. I think this was where I first heard, and became hooked on, folks songs and folk music.

Bill: When did you first come to teach at Maine Fiddle Camp?

Éric: I think it was over ten years, or around

Bill: Who recommended you to MFC? Was it either Guy B. or Lisa O.

Éric: No body recommend me to go at MFC, I remember Guy Bouchard had been there before. I was just interested to travel, to go someplace where the people are interested about Québec music. I sent to Doug a package with my CD Reel à 2 and the last album I did with the band Entourloupe. His answer was cool and he invite me the years after.

Check out this page about MFC’s old-time country dances and some common tunes that might be played.  Join the fun!

Fiddle campers Emeline Dehn-Reynolds, Peter Yarensky and Paul Fackler, have just completed a project to transcribe the tunes played by Maine fiddler, Simon St. Pierre.  Check out this page to see a short biography of Simon and a discussion of his playing, as well as the detailed transcriptions of his three albums.

In honor of the untimely passing of Maine’s legendary Simon St. Pierre in 2016 we are celebrating his music this year at Maine Fiddle Camp. Click HERE to view the last interview and music playing I did with him just a few years ago, and his fiddling is still masterful and a classic example of our region’s fiddling style. More tunes from this session on mp3 are available on our website: www.mainefiddlecamp.org.
Also there will be an upcoming version, just music performance, with many more tunes from Simon.

Hi Fiddle Campers and potential Fiddle Campers! A few days ago we received a very nice review of MFC for the first August Camp last year. This was so great, we realized we need a page just for folks to send in “testimonials”. You will now see that at the top of the web page and can access it here. Feel free to send Camp reviews to us (assistant@mainefiddlecamp.org) and we will review and possibly post them on the website. We won’t use your full name if you don’t want us to.. Thanks.. – bill o.

We are moving our newsletter emailing list to Mail Chimp and we need your help.  Please click on this link: Newsletter Signup to subscribe to the new list.  The process is pretty simple and will insure that you get our newsletters in the future.  We send occasional newsletters to let you know about related events and activities both at camp and in the community.

Published on Jun 1, 2015
Maine Fiddle Camp Director Doug Protsik talks about this multi-generational tradition music camp and demonstrates the music on various instruments offered at the camp in an interview by Ann Page.