Southern Kings Fiddlers

This newest branch of the Prince Edward Island Fiddlers' Society was formed in 2009 under the leadership of guitarist Urban Chaisson and fiddle instructor Amy Swenson. Practices take place in Montague, Kings County and average in the range of 18-20 participants – mostly fiddlers but also accompanists on guitar and piano. The Southern Kings Fiddlers currently have a repertoire of about two hundred tunes, and in particular like to emphasize selections that have been composed relatively recently in Eastern PEI. The Southern Kings Fiddlers perform regularly at the Rollo Bay Scottish Fiddle Festival and at local ceilidhs and benefit concerts; they also frequently perform for seniors at assisted living sites and "manors" (nursing homes). Many of the fiddlers who make up the membership of the Southern Kings Fiddlers learned to play via Community School, an after-hours adult education program conducted during the winter months at school buildings around the Island. The Community School programs whose participants are best represented in the Southern Kings Fiddlers are those located in Donagh, Montague, Murray River and Vernon River. Some of the important instructors who have taught fiddle over the years at these programs are Kenny Chapman (also of the Murray Harbour Six), Kathryn Dau Schmidt, Jimmy Halliday, Vince Koughan, Charlie MacNiel, and Amy Swenson. This represents the second attempt to found a Montague-based branch of the PEI Fiddlers' Society; an earlier version of the Southern Kings Fiddlers was founded in the late 1970s but was quickly disbanded.