Cultural Centre opens with Lizzy Hoyt concert

The Morinville Community Cultural Centre debuts its first professional show of the Centennial Series on Friday, Sept. 30 and Lizzy Hoyt couldn't be more pleased.

“I'm very excited and certainly honoured that I would be chosen as the act to start their first season,” said the Edmonton-based fiddler, singer and songwriter.

A Canadian “east-meets-west” performer, Hoyt blends the energetic rhythmic fiddling of the Maritimes with the more sombre country-folk tunes from the west.

As an instrumentalist she just keeps raising the bar with her toe-tapping reels, heart-felt laments and old-time waltzes. She even throws a bit of Cape Breton style step-dancing into the mix.

Partial to the traditional styles of music she said, “I find it really honest. If you listen to the old records of old guys with a banjo, there's a rawness and an honesty I respond to.”

Hoyt released her second album, Home in June 2010, co-produced by Juno Award winner Jeremiah McDade. Although the 14-track CD has some new versions of Dolly Parton's Jolene, Allister MacGillvray's Song for the Mira and Jay Unger's Ashokan Farewell, the remaining original songs mirror Hoyt's love of the prairies and the vast Alberta sky.

“I wrote the title track, Home, about Alberta. I travel a lot to learn about the world, but at some time I love to come home. Alberta is so beautiful. There are so many different landscapes and people respond to it.”

Another song dear to her heart is Vimy Ridge, a tune she began to write in 2005 while an exchange student in France. It tells the story of Canadian soldiers in the First World War. “It was very moving writing it and bringing to life that history.”

Music industry judges felt the same way. Vimy Ridge was a finalist in the 2010 International John Lennon Writing Contest. In October, Hoyt will be recording a music video for the song in France and has even been invited to stay and perform it as a Remembrance Day eulogy.

Hoyt, a Harry Ainlay High School grad, is the daughter of Janet Scott Hoyt, a piano professor at the University of Alberta and David Hoyt, a retired French horn player with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Hoyt was the impetus in creating ESO's pop concerts and the highly successful Symphony Under the Sky.

Growing up, Hoyt listened to many genres of music and even learned to play violin. But at 15 she began losing interest in practices, when a cousin mentioned that a country artist was looking for a fiddler. The award-winning country artist was Eli Barsi, and Hoyt's second gig was performing at the Calgary Stampede's Grandstand Breakfast Show in front of thousands.

Since then she's refined her style combining fiddle, guitar and bass with Irish whistles, Scottish border pipes, harp, bodhran and accordion.

Joining Hoyt are Keith Rempel (bass), Robin Pelletier (guitar), Jeremiah McDade (whistle) and Becky Moonen (harmonies/harmonica).