10 years ago, myself and several other musicians, researchers, and community members began working to document, archive, and share the traditional fiddle music of Gaspé Bay. There have been countless initiatives that have resulted from our work, both collaboratively and individually. There have been blogs (this one and http://www.gaspefiddle.blogspot.com); a CD project (Douglastown: Music and Song from the Gaspé Coast); a collection of transcribed fiddle tunes (France Dupuis and Guy Bouchard’s Airs-Mémoirs); a resurrected tradition of regular square dancing in Douglastown and their very own L’orchestre de danse de Douglastown; and numerous forthcoming projects including a video documentary about some of this work. Thanks to everyone’s hard work and passion for this music, there are now fiddlers as far away as Australia who have fallen in love with and learned this music.

On August 8, 2020, from 1-4 pm, a bunch of us who have participated in this journey will be getting together to swap tunes and chat about this music and what it means to us. Vision has agreed to be a partner in this event as has the Douglas Community Centre. I’m currently working on behalf of the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network to help community groups across the province celebrate the musical heritage of Quebec’s English-speaking communities through a project entitled “A Different Tune.” This event is being funded in part by Canadian Heritage.

You can join the fun from wherever you are in the world simply by tuning into Vision’s Facebook page (or the Douglas Community Centre)

We will be featuring the following musicians/speakers: