If you want to learn to play the fiddle, the Aurora Fiddle Society may be a good place to start.
The programs they offer start from beginners and, over the course of years, help students gain mastery over the instrument.
Andrea Bettger, fiddling director and teacher, performed with a number of students and teachers at Somba K’e Park on June 19.
“Over the years they are adding, and adding, and adding to their repertoire,” she said of the many songs students eventually learn.
One of the students, Logan Doll, had been taking classical violin lessons since he was five years old in Edmonton. Shortly after his family moved to Yellowknife in 2020, he enrolled.
“It’s a good social experience,” he said.
The main takeaway for Doll was meeting Daniel Gervais, a grandmaster fiddler from Edmonton who was invited to visit Yellowknife by the Aurora Fiddle Society to make music with the students. Together they wrote the song “The Terror,” named after Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition. He commented it was one of his favourite songs to play.
“Being able to meet and perform with a really accomplished guy was a very cool experience,” he said.
Alice Twa, a fiddle teacher, started playing in Grade 4 and learned the instrument from Bettger. She recounted her history as a fiddler.
“Andrea Bettger came to teach fiddle lessons over at Weledeh,” she said. “I spent a year in her beginner program and then I moved up into her more advanced program.”
The following year, she entered into the fiddle society’s program for youth outside of school hours and also participated in workshops on the weekends.
“I’ve been pretty involved in the learning aspect of it for a long time,” she said.
She didn’t remember the precise details of when she eventually became a teacher but she said that private fiddle lessons were difficult — if not impossible — to find when she was learning. At some point, she decided that she had learned enough and became part of the solution. She took on one or two beginner students initially and eventually expanded the number of students to nine.
Twa has since left Yellowknife to attend university to study history and journalism, but she plans to come back and continue teaching fiddle.
“I love to teach fiddle,” she said. “One of the things that I love to do most with the instrument is just getting to share my passion and help the community grow that exists in Yellowknife.”