Here is a graceful jig from New Brunswick Acadian fiddler, Claude Austin, whom some of you had the pleasure of spending time with last summer along with Robin LeBlanc at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. Claude was born and raised in Sheila, in northeastern New Brunswick, in a family where traditional music and dance were deeply woven into daily life: fifteen of his father’s seventeen siblings played fiddle! Claude took up fiddle at the age of nine on a homemade fiddle, a present from his father, which came with a somewhat daunting admonition: “Si tu peux pas le jouer comme il faut, ne le joues pas” (if you can’t play it right, don’t play at all”). Claude worked very hard to play it right and built up a large repertory, playing 10-12 six-part quadrilles of an evening at the local dance without repeating a single tune. Claude still plays for his own pleasure and is a fine, exacting teacher–let’s hope we can “play it right” too!
Claude Austin’s Jig (#2)
