File: cheveriecharles-oh-foundingfiddlerssociety_contests_M.mp3
Speakers:
CC – Fr. Charles Cheverie
In 1975, Faber MacDonald, the priest for our diocese, along with Joe Chaisson –And Joe and Fr. Faber wrote to all the fiddlers they knew at that time on the Island to gather at St. Pius X Hall in Charlottetown with the purpose of forming the Prince Edward Island Fiddlers' Society. And that's the beginning of the present PEI Fiddlers. They used to have a number of fiddle contests on PEI here. And when we were kids and we were playing cards at times, inevitably it would end in a fight. I'm the oldest of nine so we had a lot of fun as kids. And Mom would always say, "The Devil's in those cards, the Devil's in those cards." Well, to paraphrase that I think the Devil was in these fiddle contests. Because an awful lot of hardship really came out of it. Real good fiddlers, fiddlers who are now associating really nicely together – But there are fiddlers who will not speak to each other on PEI because going back to their childhood when they had these competitions and there was always the question as to whether they had fair judges, and whether the locals were favoring the local fiddlers and so forth. It was to the end of trying to get away from that that we, that Fr. Faber and Joe in particular tried to get the fiddlers together. And the idea was cooperation, sharing tunes, trying to play in concerts together, trying to enhance fiddling in whatever way they possibly could, to try to encourage the younger people to take up the art of fiddling. And Joe himself was very strong, although he could never read a note himself, Joe was very strong on having the younger people learn to read music.
