State Fiddler's contest coming to Lincoln

Lincoln will be filled with the music of fiddles on the weekend of Aug. 23-25 as the Montana State Old-Time Fiddlers Association brings their state convention and contest to town.

Isaac Callender, President of the Montana State Old-Time Fiddlers Association, suggested Lincoln as the new site for the event, following a decision to move it after hosting it for eight years in Choteau.

"We just wanted to move it somewhere a little more central to the fiddling population," Callender said.

While Lincoln does sit near the geographic center of four of the association's five active districts, it also has a bit of history working in its favor. For 16 years, from 1984 to 1999, The Wilderness Bar hosted a popular fiddler's contest here.

"Everybody had fond memories of the Lincoln contest; it used to be really fun. I know I went to it as a kid a bunch," Callender said.

The contest, which wasn't run by the MSOTFA itself, lapsed under a brief period when the bar changed ownership around 2000-2001. But when Ethel Peterson took back ownership of the bar she worked with the Old-Time Fiddler's Association to bring in a Fiddler's Jamboree that's been an annual event since 2003.

Callender said current Wilderness Bar owner Kelly Riesbeck was game to host the contest this year, which has at least 50 fiddlers on board to take to the stage for the contest itself.

Callender expects the weekend event to draw a substantial crowd.

"We've got people coming from Washington, Oregon Idaho, maybe as far as way as Texas," he said "We're hoping we'll have about 300 people coming into town for it. Not just fiddles, but guitar players and music lovers in general."

Although jamborees like the one held here every July tend to draw older musicians, Callender said younger generations are carrying on the fiddling tradition as well, a fact that will be evident at the contest.

"We have a lot of kids coming," he said. "Of all the people from out of state, 80 percent of them are under the age of 18, and really phenomenal players. We also have a lot of kids from within the state as well. Of the 50 players, probably 30 of them are in our younger age divisions."

Callender explained that the younger fiddlers travel to contests every weekend and tend to be more focused on the competitive aspect of things.

"It's like sports or anything else," he said, adding he did that as a kid as well.

Callendar said they are calling it a "Convention & Contest" because they want people to come and have fun, whether they're taking part in the contest or not. He said the weekend includes several other events, such as free dances Friday and Saturday night, a gospel hour at 10 a.m. Sunday, followed by Fiddle and Rhythm workshops.

"It's a three-day thing and we're hoping people will come and hang out for the whole weekend. The contest is just sort of the excuse," he said.

The contest is probably not the only place people will hear musicians during the weekend. Callender said at past events, musicians have held jam sessions at different restaurants and businesses.

"People just get together and play," he said. "That's one of the reasons we wanted to move it here. There's Hooper Park, with camping and places for people to just get together and play. It's not just on stage. Fiddling's very communal."

Callender said the state contest originated in Polson, but has moved to Red Lodge and Choteau. He conceded that new venues always present a challenge, since they represent something of a change in tradition for folks, but said if things go well and people like it here, the convention and contest may return to Lincoln regularly.

"Hopefully we'll have it here annually," he said.

The MSOTFA has been around since 1963 and has a mission to preserve traditional acoustic fiddle music throughout Montana, a state with a long fiddling heritage brought over by settlers from throughout Europe.

"The majority of what's being played in Montana is filtered down over a couple hundred years, but mainly Scotch/Irish and a lot of French-Canadian influence," Callender said. "There's a huge tradition in Canada of the French Canadians, loggers especially. That also kind of translated to here." He pointed out the huge fiddling tradition around Frenchtown that came from the French. He said there's a strong fiddling heritage in the Nordic countries as well.

The MSOTFA brings instructors to the state from all over the world to for a two-week fiddle camp in Monarch every summer, and they host instructional workshops throughout the year to teach fiddle and acoustic music in general.

"We do whatever we can to support fiddle playing. We do school programs, jams all over the state," Callender said. "Our main focus is educating people about fiddling and teaching them how to play fiddle and enjoy the music and have that be part of their lives."