File: dauschmidtkathryn06-oh-future_M.mp3
Speaker:
KD – Kathryn Dau Schmidt
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
KD: Two of my grandfathers and a great-grandfather were fiddlers [in Iowa and Wisconsin]. I never knew any of them. Well, I knew one of my grandfathers, but I never heard him play fiddle. But they were fiddlers.
KP: Out in?
KD: This would be in Iowa and Wisconsin – American old-time fiddlers. It was such as revelation to me to come somewhere where there was still a traditional music being played. Because it had completely died out anywhere else I had lived before, Iowa, Wisconsin, and where I lived in Saskatchewan, because I was in the urban areas in Saskatchewan. So everywhere I lived before, the traditional music, the native music wasn't there anymore. In Saskatoon [once] they brought in a Ukrainian band, and I thought "Oh wow, this is great. There are so many Ukrainians around here, it must be part of their culture. It's going to be some traditional thing, its' going to be wonderful!" We get there and it's one of these polished glitzy dance bands with the florescent costumes. It was awful! It wasn't their traditional music. It was some…
KP: hybrid?
KD: Yes. So when I got here and it was the real music of the people here, it was still part of their life, it was just so incredible to me. And it was my instrument. But I'm worried it's going to become like the florescent, glitzy Ukrainian dance band (laughs). But anyway, we held it off as long as we could! I don't know, is it better that it becomes that instead of dying out all together? Are those our two alternatives?
