No living soul can resist the toe-tapping beat of a MĂ©tis fiddle, according to Calvin Vollrath.
Vollrath, a renowned fiddle player from St. Paul who composed and played music for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, is set once again to rock Servus Credit Union Place this weekend as one of the many star performers at St. Albert’s third annual MĂ©tis Spring Festival.
The event is a three-day celebration of MĂ©tis music and dance organized by Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Centres, according to festival co-ordinator Florence Gaucher. About 700 people from across Canada are expected to come see local jiggers strut their stuff to the finest tunes fiddlers can offer.
“We’re doing it a little bit different this year,” Gaucher notes, in that they’ve eliminated the square-dancing competition. They’ve instead invited several square-dance groups to perform with each group receiving part of the prize money they could have won to cover their expenses. “It’s more important to carry on the traditions of MĂ©tis dance than to compete.”
This year’s festival will start with an open dance competition on Friday, says Don Langford, chair of the board at Poundmaker’s, where guests will be invited to waltz and foxtrot on the dance floor.
“We just want to get them out on the floor to dance for a bit.”
Saturday and Sunday will be packed with jigs, square dances and fiddle-fests as performers compete for some $20,000 in prizes.
Vollrath learned the fiddle in about 1968, and has played at all three MĂ©tis Fests in St. Albert. “My dad was a fiddle player,” he says, and recalls imitating his playing as a child using two butter knives.
Vollrath got his start in MĂ©tis fiddling when a MĂ©tis dance group heard him play in the mid-‘70s. They liked him, and invited him out to other events. “I started playing dances every night.”
While not MĂ©tis himself, Vollrath says he learned from some of the best fiddlers in the west: Gilbert Anderson, Richard Callihoo, John Arcand and others. “They kind of had their own set of tunes they played,” he says, with each having a distinct regional style. “They remembered the tunes their fathers played.”
MĂ©tis fiddling has its roots in European music with a distinct North American twist, Vollrath says. It’s most notable for its “crooked tunes” that have unexpected shifts in number of bars per verse. While a European tune might go, “four, four, four, four,” a MĂ©tis one might go, “four, two, three, seven, four.”
“It has a kick to it,” he continues — a life and energy that’s impossible to capture in simple notation. “It’s not just the notes. It’s how you play the notes.” Expect extra zip in the bow-work and swings in the pace. “It really makes you want to get up and dance.”
Fiddles and jigs were what you did for entertainment back in the old days, says Langford, who remembers such dances from his youth. “You had to make your own entertainment back then.”
The Red River Jig, and its accompanying dance, has since become the unofficial anthem of the MĂ©tis, he continues. “It’s a tradition that’s been carried forward generation after generation.”
This festival is a way to get back to the past and have some fun, Vollrath says. “If you can’t dance to MĂ©tis music, you’d better check your pulse!”
The festival starts at 8 p.m. this Friday and runs until Sunday. Tickets are $5. For details, call Gaucher at 780-452-6100, ext. 227.
