Instructors

Ward MacDonald - PEI Scottish Fiddle

Ward MacDonald grew up in the Scottish fiddling traditions of Prince Edward Island. His playing style reflects four generations of family fiddling and is spiced with a unique combination of Cape Breton, Acadian, and Irish influences. Ward has been a performer, composer, and teacher for the past 14 years.

Ward has been featured at concerts, festivals, and square dances across Atlantic Canada as well as Ontario, Quebec, and the Yukon. He has also taught and performed at fiddle camps in Yukon, Vermont, Maine, and the Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp. Watch a video of Ward performing at the Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival.

As a teacher Ward possesses a thorough technical understanding of the music with a knack for explaining it in simple terms. His method includes intense ear training aided by written sheet music. Ward’s most recent project is founding the first-ever PEI Fiddle Camp.

Richard Wood – PEI Scottish Fiddle

For more than two decades, Richard Wood has impressed audiences all across Canada, as well as in the US, Europe, and Japan. Highlights include TV guest appearances with Shania Twain on “David Letterman” and “Good Morning America,” Carnegie Hall with Irish legends The Chieftains, a featured performer on CBC’s Canada Day on Parliament Hill, “Rita MacNeil and Friends,” and with Jean Butler of Riverdance on “Celtic Electric.”

Richard has played for Canada’s Prime Minister and Governor General, the Queen of England (in Toronto), and for the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo. In the late 1990s he toured the UK & Europe headlining concert halls and folk festivals. He’s since played at the Lincoln Centre in New York City, Epcot at Disney World, and was a featured performer in the touring fiddle spectacle “Bowfire.”

Richard is proud to have entertained Canada’s armed forces in Bosnia and twice in Afghanistan. He has five previous CD recordings and has won three East Coast Music Awards. MacLean’s Magazine named him one of the Top 100 Canadians to watch in the 21st Century.

With a new CD, rejuvenated energy and enthusiasm, Richard Wood, Prince Edward Island fiddler, artist, composer and entertainer is ready to take on the world once again in 2010. Richard has come full circle, not just in his musical career, but from the sheltered innocence as a child prodigy to learning life’s lessons the hard way. Visit www.rwood.ca

Pascal Miousse – Magdalen Islands Fiddle, Mandolin, Guitar, Voice

Pascal is one of the Magdalen Islands’ finest fiddle players. He has developed his own style using a unique bowing technique rarely heard anywhere else. He left the islands in his late teens and since then has been performing in concert halls and festivals around the world.

A natural improviser on any string instrument, he brings out his many musical influences and creates a fresh and exciting sound. He is a skilfull composer and has created many melodies and tunes. Pascal and his style of playing has become a musical anchor of the Acadian group Vishtèn since 2002. Visit www.vishtenmusic.com.

Karine Gallant - Irish & PEI Acadian Fiddle

Karine Gallant is an Acadian fiddler from the Evangeline region of PEI. For those who don’t know her, she’s a bit of a dreamer.  For her, music is a doorway into a mysterious world that is both interesting and thrilling.  At an early age, Karine fell in love with the melodic sound of the fiddle.  She asked for a fiddle at age 3, started step dancing with her mom at 4 years and finally got her fiddle at 7 years of age.  Karine’s main influence as a young fiddler was PEI legend Kim Vincent.  She finished her traditional music studies at the Cégep régional de Lanaudière in Joliette, Quebec, in 2007 and perfected her knowledge while travelling in Ireland, Sweden and in the States.  As a true lover of trad music, Karine is always happy to share her passion with a few tunes.

George Fowler – Maine Fiddle

George trained classically as a youngster, but started fiddling in the late 1970s by learning tunes from lobsterman & folk fiddler Albert Collins of South Blue Hill, Maine. He is a staff instructor at Maine Fiddle Camp, a member of The Montville Project www.montvilleproject.com, a repertory ensemble which has released two recordings of classic New England tunes, and a founding member of Oakum Bay String Band, the host band for the monthly Blue Hill dance, the longest-running contradance in Maine.  George also has a strong interest in Irish traditional music and hosts “New Potatoes”, a weekly music show on WERU-FM, where he can be heard on Sundays from 4-6pm.

Meghan Forsyth – Beginner Fiddle Programs

Meghan started playing Suzuki violin at the age of five, while also involved in Scottish Country and Highland dancing. It wasn’t long before the tunes crept into her fingers, and she has played both classical violin and fiddle ever since. From 1999 to 2008 Meghan taught violin and viola with the University of Lethbridge Music Conservatory (Alberta), Lethbridge Youth Strings Program (Alberta), Wychwood School of Music (Toronto), and through her private studio. Meghan has played with orchestras in Lethbridge, Toronto, Holland, England and Japan, as well as for musical theatre and opera productions. From 2000 to 2003, she fiddled in folk/roots singer-songwriter John Wort Hannam’s band, based in southern Alberta. She also played fiddle in Scottish Country Dance bands for many years.

As part of her Master’s degree in ethnomusicology (Cambridge 2005), in 2004/05 Meghan headed up to the Shetland Isles (UK) to conduct fieldwork on the fiddling tradition of the Shetland Isles. Meghan now lives in Toronto, but her heart is in the east coast. She is completing her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto, focusing on contemporary Acadian music on Prince Edward Island. She teaches courses in ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University (Toronto).

Pastelle LeBlanc - Accordion, Dance, Voice, Piano

Noticed at a very young age by a local dance professor who wanted to form a group dedicated to preserving Acadian dancing, Pastelle learned and mastered several styles of step dancing. She’s taught and created many dance choreographies, crafting her own style of percussive and stylistic dancing.

A multi-instrumentalist, she favors the accordion. At the age of ten, Pastelle started playing the piano and accompanying fiddle tunes. It is only many years later that she picked up the piano accordion and hasn’t looked back since. She has truly developed her own style and is pushing the boundaries with her powerful and honest playing. Pastelle is also a great tune composer and has composed many new tunes since her late teens.

It’s in her home growing up that she listened to some of the finest fiddle and piano players of her community, and was also introduced to all kinds of music from her father’s wide collection of records. Pushing the tradition forward while being true to her roots, these musical influences transpire in everything she does.

She is one of the founding members of the well-known Acadian group, Vishtèn and has been touring the world sharing her culture. Visit www.vishtenmusic.com.

Emmanuelle LeBlanc – Dance, Whistles, Bodhran, Piano, Jaw Harp, Dance, Voice

As a musician, singer, step dancer, choreographer and teacher, Emmanuelle specializes in Acadian traditional music. She grew up in the Evangeline region of Prince Edward Island and was raised with a passion as much for dance as for music.

Step dancing came first, learning various styles from the best dancers in the region and performing on the local and national level. She picked up the piano in her early teens and later on, the whistle and the bodhran. Emmanuelle has developed her own distinct sound, taking the normally Irish instruments and creating her own rhythmic style of playing.

She co-founded the well-known Acadian group Vishtèn and with them has realized more than 50 international tours in France, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the US as well as co-producing their three albums: Vishtèn, Vishtèn (2004); Vishtèn, 11:11 (2006); and Vishtèn, Live (2008). Visit www.vishtenmusic.com.

Louis-Charles Vigneau - Guitar, Banjo

Louis-Charles grew up immersed in traditional music of the Magdalen Islands. As a guitarist, he has a special touch for accompanying fiddle and songs. For the past two years his music has continued to evolve as a member of the Acadian band, Vishtèn.

Before becoming a professional musician, he taught guitar in primary schools in the Magdalen Islands where beginners and intermediate players were exposed to traditional music. Since then, the next generation of young musicians have shown great enthusiasm for the traditional music and guitar accompaniment.Visit www.vishtenmusic.com.

Dr. Ellen MacPhee - Scottish Smallpipes, Border pipes

A native of Summerside, PEI, Ellen MacPhee began her piping journey with the Caledonia Pipe Band, the group that eventually evolved into the College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts of Canada. As one of its original students, Ellen dedicated her early teenage years to studying at the College and competing with its pipe band. Also as a student, Ellen attended many summer sessions at the Gaelic College in St. Anne’s, Cape Breton studying step and highland dancing, highland piping, and eventually Scottish smallpipes.

Ellen was introduced to the smallpipes in the summer of 1993 by Hamish Moore of Scotland. The influence of this meeting continues to guide her musical path. In the last few years, Ellen has focused her time on the smallpipes and more recently border pipes, playing in dance halls and on stages around the Maritime Provinces, Ontario, and the Eastern United States. She has instructed smallpiping for several summers at the Gaelic College and was pleased to teach at their first International camp in Vermont in 2004.

In August 2005, Ellen was invited to Vermont where she had the great honour of teaching at Hamish Moore’s piping school in Richmond. She was also a guest at the Killington Piper’s Gathering in 2005 and 2009 where she taught, performed, and delivered seminars on The Prevention of Overuse Injuries in Musicians.

Ellen performed in the Piper’s Ceilidh at the Celtic Colours International Festival in Cape Breton in both 2005 and 2006 where she shared the stage with many international artists.

Tim Cummings - Scottish Smallpipes, Border Pipes, Highland

Tim Cummings, a native of Tennessee, began his musical studies at the age of 6 as a student of the piano. He took up the pipes at age 8, and piping has been his primary musical focus ever since. Tim has studied piping with Al MacRae, Sandy Keith, Scott MacAulay, and briefly with the faculty at the RSAMD and National Piping Centre in Glasgow.

He earned his undergraduate degree in Music Education (The College of Wooster, Ohio); and both a B.A. Honours degree in Ethnomusicology and an M.A. in Musicology (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand).  During the 2002-03 school year, he was the Artist in Residence at The College of Piping in Summerside, PEI.  While living in New Zealand, Tim was a member of the highly competitive Manawatu Scottish Pipe Band, and he continues to arrange much of their repertoire. He has also published several pieces and collections of piping music via Beithe Publishing.

Currently based in Vermont, Tim works as a private teacher, performer, arranger/composer, and publisher of piping and Celtic-related music.  In his spare time, he enjoys clawhammer banjo, shape-note singing, the great outdoors, and causing a little mischief here and there.