New Name, Same Great Orchestra

Jeff Green | Jan 16, 2025

New name, same great orchestra

For over 20 years, the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra has been on the same mission, to promote fiddle music, and all music, as an activity for young and old to enjoy and incorporate into their lives.

The vision behind the orchestra, which has been passed by its founding director Carolyn Stewart, to her hand-picked successor Cindy McCall, was to bring fiddle music back into communities where it had once been a strong tradition.

Too many fiddles were languishing in closets and basements throughout Frontenac and Lanark County.

The orchestra has changed that, and its ripple effect in local communities has spread far and wide.

At last week's (January 5th) post Christmas Fiddles and Voices show at the Maberly Hall, the main orchestra featured many players in their 50s, 60s and 70s. But the young players in the beginner and intermediate orchestra who played earlier in the concert, are a reminder of the young players who played with the orchestra when they were young and continue to play today, wherever life has taken them. Still others, including Japhy Sullivan, Meghan Balogh, Willow and Fern Marwood, and Jessica Wedden, have gone on to play fiddle professionally across the country, and internationally.

And the older players, who have been with the orchestra for 5 to 20 plus years, play in living rooms and at open mics across the region. In that way,  orchestra members spread. the joy of music and music-making throughout the community, in addition to practising with the orchestra on Saturday mornings throughout the fall, winter and spring months, each year.

The orchestra was named the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra, because it was originally established, and funded, by Blue Skies in the Community, the outreach arm of the annual Blue Skies Music Festival that takes place each year north of Sharbot Lake in Clarendon, on the August long weekend.

The formal relationship between the orchestra and Blue Skies in the Community ended this past fall, and the orchestra is now a not-for-profit corporation with its own board of directors, and is in the midst of the process of becoming a charitable not-for-profit.

This behind the scene change has also resulted in a name change. The orchestra is now called the “Bright Strings Fiddle Orchestra”.

The concert at the Maberly Hall featured a mix of seasonal classics that the orchestra has played at past Christmas shows, along with some tunes, and songs, they have been working on throughout the past few months.

Although they play other shows throughout the year, as guest of the Festival of Trees in Sharbot Lake for example, the opportunity to play in their home hall, with room to stretch out, physically and musically, on celtic based tunes as well as many from other traditions, demonstrates the full capacity of the orchestra's skills, as well as the arrangements that Cindy McCall has been working on.

On these challenging songs and tunes, including O'Carolyn's ‘Si Bheag Si Mhor’ and the traditional parting song, popular in Scotland and Ireland, ‘The Parting Glass’, the orchestra has developed their level of performance in leaps and bounds in recent years.

Not only has the Bright Strings Fiddle Orchestra been a boon to a strong local music scene in both Lanark and Frontenac counties, but as a unit they have progressed steadily over a long period of time.

Anyone who is interested in joining the orchestra, starting or continuing to play, is welcome to contact the orchestra by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The orchestra also inherited its music lending library from the Blue Skies Music Festival, so instruments are available to rent for budding musicians, young and old, to try out for a period of time.