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DonnaHebert |
www.fiddlingdemystified.com
Playing Since: 1972
Experience Level: Expert/Professional
Interests:
[Teaching] [Helping]
Occupation: fiddle teacher, performer
Gender: Female
My Instruments:
Just one, a composite American fiddle with the back and ribs from one instrument and the top from another.
Favorite Bands/Musicians:
First would be the musicians in my three groups (Groovemama, Chanterelle and The Beaudoin Project), who since we are in bands together had better be my favorites to play and perform with! Then I'd say my favorite fiddlers were Darol Anger (fusion), Sara Caswell (jazz violin), Alan Jabbour and Bruce Molsky (Old-Time), Martin Hayes and Liz Carroll (Irish), Chris Leslie (English), Natalie MacMaster, Jerry Holland (Cape Breton), Aly Bain, Tom Anderson (Shetland), Alasdair Fraser, Laura Risk (Scots), Louis Beaudoin, Daniel Boucher, Andre Brunet (French-Canadian), Graham Townsend and April Verch (Canadian), Gerry Robichaud (Acadian), Dewey Balfa, Kevin Wimmer (Cajun), Johnny Gimble (Texas Swing), Ruthie Dornfeld & George Wilson (contradance).
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Profile Info:
Visible to: Public
Created 6/30/2007
Last Visit 12/2/2008
My mom played tenor banjo and sang professionally with her sister in all-girl bands in clubs and on the radio in the 1930s and 40s. She taught me to harmonize a song before I started school. At age 9, I began violin lessons in school and then left it alone for eight years after high school, finally crossing over to fiddle music in my early twenties to play for contradances with Dudley Laufman's Canterbury Country Orchestra in New England. Later I played for and ran contradances with caller Tony Parkes and Yankee Ingenuity from 1975-1985 at the Concord, MA Scout House. In 1985, I moved to Western Massachusetts (we call it The Happy Valley), founding Rude Girls with singer/songwriter/guitarist Lyn Hardy in 1985. I recorded with them and played festivals for several years, then went back to school at UMass, married and had a daughter. I moved to Amherst and began playing to folk and French-speaking audiences with Franco-American singer and songwriter Josee Vachon and guitarist and singer Liza Constable, performing the music of the French in North America as Chanterelle. We are still going strong in our 14th year! Teaching is very important to me - we have to pass on what we know to the next generation. In 2000, I began a program coaching school-age musicians for a main stage performance at the Old Songs Festival in Altamont NY. We just celebrated our 8th year of the Great Groove Band with 35 kids onstage, including step-dancers, with guest teacher and Barachois alumna Louise Arsenault of Prince Edward Island! Last year we expanded the Great Groove Band, with a sister program now at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. In 2007, I published my "Fiddling Demystified: A Practical Guide for String Players," book with two instructional CDs and several other DVDs, books and CDs are in progress. George Wilson and myself will also perform with The Beaudoin Project at the Lowell Folk Festival and the Champlain Valley Festival this summer. We'll also teach a Fiddling Demystified for Strings Day Camp August 6-10 in Greenfield MA. During the school year, I teach fiddle to Amherst College students and have a private studio in Amherst. My daughter just graduated from high school and is off to New York for college in the fall.
Newest Posts
'Chin rest vs chest rest' 2 days
'Bergonzi' 3 days
'Done Gone - Jesse Milnes' 4 days
'The Keystone Fiddlers' 4 days
