Eight-year-old Hunter Pearen of Quesnel was a competitor in the Old Time Fiddle Contest

Prince George, BC –  At 43-years, it’s the longest running Old Time Fiddle Contest in the province and, yesterday, contestants from around the province took part in the Prince George event at the Blackburn Community Centre.

Event volunteer, Marguerite MacKenzie, says the first contest in 1969 was held a few years before the BC Old time Fiddlers’ Association formed, so Prince George has the honour of being the original chapter and is officially ‘Branch #1’.

MacKenzie says Friday evening’s concert to kick off the annual event emphasized that the local branch is still going strong.  "We’ve got a lot of good young fiddlers coming up," she says.  "At the concert, there were 11 of them that played as a group.  They opened the concert, they played various styles of music and it was very well done."

It was Hunter Pearen’s second time participating in the competition.  The eight-year-old from Quesnel has only been playing fiddle for a year and a half.  

He says he really enjoys the different styles of music he’s learning to play on his fiddle – with some songs being easy and others much more complicated. 

Click on photo at right, to hear Hunter play ‘Smash the Window’.

Eamonn Osborne (left) and Joshua Litton (right) drove 14-hours from Victoria to take part in the Prince George contest.  The boys were practising their piece, the ‘First Grand Masters Reel’, in the afternoon sunshine outside the community centre.

11-year-old Eamonn has been playing both violin and fiddle for 6.5-years now, while 12-year-old Joshua is a long-time violinist who’s been playing since he was two.  He took up the fiddle two years ago.  Click on photo to hear them play.

The judges for yesterday’s contest had storied reputations on the national fiddling scene, including Peter Dawson who’s played all over Canada and the US and was inducted into the North American Fiddlers Hall of Fame in 2005.  But the alternate judge was a young local fiddler, Sydney Wilson, who’s won the Provincial Championships six times and attended the Canadian Grand Masters Championships twice.  It’s a balance between experience and youthful enthusiasm that seems to bode well for the future of the local competition.

Local fiddlers meet on Thursday evenings for jam sessions at the Elder Citizens’ Recreation Centre.  Anyone wanting more information can contact the local Fiddlers’ Association President, Brian St. Germain at 250-962-5929.