Category Archives: Meeting Schedule

Fiddle Club guests for 2013

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Two concert meetings * are now scheduled for the Winter and Spring to be held in fun new location with great acoustics, the back room at Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie) (Check ’em out.)
B.Y.O.B. Snacks will be provided.

Jimmy Keane

Jimmy Keane, Accordion Master
Sunday, January 27, 2013, 6:30pm

As a young boy, Jimmy Keane, Jr. chose, not the ubiquitous button box or melodeon, but the full scale piano accordion. And he mastered it fully, becoming All-Ireland champion while still in his teens. Today he rules the roost. A Chicago treasure, Jimmy was recently named the Irish “Male Musician of the Decade (2000-2010).” An accomplished solo artist, he has performed with such bands as Aengus and Bohola, and participated on numerous tours of “Greenfields of America” and “An Irish Homecoming.” He’s got some new tunes he wants to try out for us, and will teach us a few.

$15 admission. Click here to register.

Kirk Sutphin & Bertram Levy
Kirk Sutphin & Bertram Levy
Sunday, March 10, 6:30 pm
Banjos, Bows and Bellows

This unique program features two artists who learned their music back in the 1970s from the same Blue Ridge Mountain luminaries–Henry Reed, Tommy Jarrell and Oscar Wright. Kirk still lives near his birthplace in Walkertown, North Carolina. He is both an excellent fiddler and accomplished in clawhammer and old-time finger-style banjo. He plays with the New North Carolina Ramblers. Bertram Levy spent his younger years in North Carolina, where he was an original member of the Hollow Rock String Band. Some years ago he moved to the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, where he helped found the American Festival of Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend. A virtuosic banjoist, favoring gut strings, Bertram also plays tango music on bandoneon in the band Tangoheart, and traditional American music on the Anglo concertina. Their recent CD, “The Bellow and the Bow” features duets with fiddle, banjo and concertina.

$15 admission. Click here to register.

* Our guests will present a short concert (one set), to be followed by jam session.

Euro Roots World Music

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Jutta & the Hi-Dukes
Sunday, November 18, 6:30pm
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln)

A world music trio from Evanston, they will play a short concert to start things off. Then we’ll work through a couple of tunes (see the link below), and maybe even do a simple circle dance or two. All fiddlers, musicians, listeners and dancers invited.

The tunes: click here for recordings and actual notes!

Jutta Distler plays for folk dancers
Jutta Distler plays for folk dancers. Terran Doeher leads the dance.

To register, follow this link, type ‘fiddle club’ in class name box.
$15 for this meeting. $60 for a year long subscription.

Fiddle Events

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Jutta & the Hi-Dukes
Just booked as special guests for our next meeting
Sunday, November 18 – 6:30p
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln), in the back room
(To register for this meeting, see below. *)

A bit of world music. Maybe a little Klezmer. Maybe a touch of Danish.
They are Terran Doehrer, Zoï Doehrer and Jutta Distler.

Old-Time Square Dance this Friday
October 26, part of the Old Town School’s Global Dance Party.
Great music by Geoff Seitz & Friends,** calling by Paul Collins.
The dancing starts at 8:30. All dances will be taught throughout the evening. No experience necessary. Fun will be had.

*You can register for Fiddle Club of the World meetings at www.oldtownschool.org and search the class catalog for Fiddle Club. That brings up two choices: 1) a single meeting registration for $15, or 2) a year’s subscription to all Fiddle Club events for $60.

** Jim Nelson, Dedo Norris and Steve Rosen.

-Paul Tyler, convener
Chicago Chapter

Guest Artist for next Fiddle Club meeting

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Frank Hall, Old-Time Fiddler
Sunday, September 30 – 6:30p
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln), in the back room

Founding fiddler of the Easy Street String Band, Bloomington, Indiana’s finest in the 1980s. Frank also played with the Yeah Buddys and the Monks before moving to Ireland right at the start of this century. He’s still playing American old-time tunes along with some of Ireland’s best traditional musicians.

Frank Hall Easy Street String Band

You can register at www.oldtownschool.org and search the class catalog for Fiddle Club. That brings up two choices: 1) a single meeting registration for $15, or 2) a year’s subscription to all Fiddle Club events for $60.

Here are some tunes to learn for the jam session with Frank . . .

Sopping Up the Gravy learned from a 1972 recording of Charlie “Jake” Corns of Battle Ground, Indiana


Jim Shank from Bruce Greene

Frank is a fine dance fiddler. So Fiddle Clubbers get to decide. Do we want him to play a concert set, or should we have a dance? If the latter, we’ll start with the jam session at 6:30, and follow with the dance. Let me know your druthers with a comment below.

– Paul Tyler, convener

Banjo master to appear at Fiddle Club

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Clarke Buehling – vintage banjoist
Sunday, July 8 – 6:30pm
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln)

Clarke Buehling

“Clarke Buehling is both a banjo master and a devoted clear channel to America’s musical heritage dating back as far as 200 years. Most important of all: He sounds really good!” So says Pete Wernick, “Dr. Banjo,” founding member of the bluegrass band, Hot Rize, and a pretty good picker, himself.

Leader of The Skirtlifters Old-Time Band, Clarke Buehling specializes in the 19th century banjo styles that pre-figured both clawhammer and Scruggs picking. Clarke can play breakdowns and jig using the minstrel stroke, followed by virtuosic finger-picking on banjo rags and classical pieces. He’s a powerful player and a dynamic performer. A fiddle tune jam will follow a presentation not to be missed!

Green Corn-Essence of Old Virginny from the album Out of His Gourd.


St. Louis Tickle (Rag Time Two-Step) from the Skirtlifters album Wait for the Wagon.


(Both albums available here.)

Clarke Buehling will guest at Fiddle Club on Sunday, July 8 at 6:30 pm in the backroom of the Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln). Click here to register for a single meeting ($15 ), or click here for a year-long subscription ($60) to all Fiddle Club events..

Swedish guests at Fiddle Club

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Anders & Maria Larsson
Monday, June 4 – 7p
Room E124 — Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

This duo, veterans of the thriving Swedish folk music scene, is making their first visit to Chicago. In their few days here, they will give a workshop at the Old Town School on Sunday, June 3, followed by an evening concert at the Swedish-American Museum. Then on Monday evening, they will gather with Old Town fiddle alums, students and fans for an evening of traditional Swedish tunes. Come just to listen, or to play along. Not just for fiddlers.

Anders & Maria Larson
Anders & Maria Larson of Svanevit
(click here for info on June 3 concert at the Swedish-American Museum)

You can register for the Fiddle Club meeting for $15 by clicking here, or click this link for the $60 yearly subscription that gives you entrance to all Fiddle Club events.

Once again, here’s a couple of tunes of their beauteous music, as given on an earlier post, from the album Rikedom och gåvor with their quartet Svanevit.

Kardborren


Tranan

Big Fiddle Times a-Coming

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Lots of good stuff coming up. Get your calendars out. Make your summer plans.

1. Fiddle Club of the World meetings

Dorian Gehring, Cajun
Sunday, May 20 – 6:30p
Room E324 – Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

Single meeting dues is $15: register here.

Sample these tunes recorded live from the grounds at the Chicago Folk & Roots Festival in 2010, when Dorian Gehring & the Cajun Vagabonds took first place in the 8th Midwest Fiddle Championship Band Division.

Cajun waltz


Lacassine Special

Dorian Gehring & the Cajun Vagabonds
Dorian Gehring & the Cajun Vagabonds		 Anders & Maria Larson
Anders & Maria Larson of Svanevit

Anders & Maria Larsson, from Sweden
A special meeting, just scheduled
Monday, June 4 – 7p
Room E124 — Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

Single meeting dues is $15: register here.

Or come to both meetings, plus all Fiddle Club events for the next 12 months with a yearly subscription of $60.
2. Old Time Square Dances
(part of Global Dance Party)

The White Mules (Genevieve & Smith Koester)
with caller Bridget Edwards from Bloomington, Indiana
Friday, May 18 – 8:30p
Szold Hall – Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

All tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance by clicking here.

More square dances have been added to the schedule
Patt & Possum
with caller Bill Sudkamp
Friday, August 17

Geoff Seitz & Friends (from St. Louis)
with caller Paul Tyler
Friday, October 26 (tentative)

3. As part of the Square Roots Festival

10th Midwest Fiddle Championship
Finals will be held on Saturday, July 21 – 1:45-2:45p
Maurer Hall – Old Town School West (4544 Lincoln)

and

Fiddle Club of the World Battle of the Bands
an invitational, same day – 7-8p
Szold Hall – Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

Opening round and registration information to be announced soon.

-Paul Tyler, convener

Time for some Bluegrass

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Ed Cosner & Katie Bern
Saturday, April 14, 7:30,
Room E324 in Old Town School East

Transplanted southerner Ed Cosner has been introducing scores of younger fiddlers in northwest Indiana to the sounds of bluegrass. Katie Bern, a past winner in our Midwest Fiddle Championship, was one of his finest students.

Some tunes from the teacher, Mr. Cosner . . .

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star


Dreamer’s Waltz


And one from Katie, the student . . .

Festival Rag


$15 dues for this meeting, click here, or choose the year-long subscription option ($60 for 12 months of Fiddle Club).

A bit of Irish fiddling, with Deirdre Ní Chonghaile

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Deirdre Ní Chonghaile,
Guest at Fiddle Club of the World
Friday, March 23, 7:30p,
Old Town School East

Deirdre Ní Chonghaile is a fiddle-player from the Aran Islands in Ireland. She is currently the NEH Keough Fellow at the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where she is revising her PhD into a book about music collectors and music-collecting. This summer, she will take up the Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies before returning to Ireland to start her next project, a comprehensive collection of songs composed in the Aran Islands over the last 200 years. She also works as a broadcaster, musician, and teacher of music and dance.

$15 dues for this meeting, click here, or choose the yearly dues option.

Here are some fairly easy tunes we could play together, as found on YouTube.
Na Ceannabháin Bhána, a slip jig (9/8 time)
Nead na Lachan sa Mhúta, another slip jig, also called The Fox Hunter’s

The Peeler and the Goat, a slide
slow and fast

Also, check out the Tune(s) of the Week for the last two weeks for
a set of polkas and a set of hornpipes or barn dances

Finally, here are the ABCs for tunes that Deirdre suggested.

Special Meeting, Special Guests, This Saturday

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Arto Järvelä with Kaivama – Finnish Trad
Saturday, March 3, 7:30p
Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln), Rm E324

Arto Järvelä Kaivama

We welcome back Arto Järvelä, our good friend from Finland, for his second visit to Fiddle Club of the World. Many of us have warm memories of his residency at the Old Town School in 2009. Joining him for their second visit to the Old Town School is Kaivama, the duo of Sara Pajunen and Jonathan Rundman, from the Northwoods of Minnesota. Separately and together they have excavated many beautiful, archaic gems from the music traditions of the Finnish people, while also contributing new melodies in those ancient keys.

Here’s a sample, recorded during their visit in June 2011, when the three of them dropped in on my Fiddle 4 class.

Minuet efter Matti Haudanmaa


Arto Järvelä & Kaivama
(click here for another view)

To learn a couple of tunes to play with Arto, click here to listen, or here for the notes.

$15 dues for only this meeting, click here to register.

Join Fiddle Club of the World for $60 yearly dues, support our guest artists and save 20% off the spring schedule alone. You will then have free admission for the rest of your year-long membership. Plus you get your own very cool Fiddle Club card.