High honor for Amherst fiddler . . .
Amherst MA fiddler Donna Hébert has been awarded an 2008 Artists' Fellowship in the Folk Arts by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The state arts award, given "to recognize exceptional work and to support the further development of talent," honors her work in Franco-American music. "This has been a labor of love, so having that work recognized is very sweet," Donna said when she heard about the honor from Maggie Holtzberg, Folk Arts & Heritage Program Manager for the Council. There will be a showcase concert Oct. 4 at the Museum of Our National Heritage in Lexington, MA.
A third-generation Franco-American, Donna co-founded two Franco music groups. Chanterelle, formed in 1993 with Josée Vachon, Liza Constable and Alan Bradbury, contributed two original song tracks to the Smithsonian/ Folkways anthology, "Mademoiselle, voulez-vous danser." A favorite of Franco audiences in the northeast, Chanterelle are regulars at the Blackstone River Theatre in RI and are working on a new CD. See them July 12 at the Vergennes (VT) Opera House for Franco Heritage Fest.
The Beaudoin Legacy took shape in 2005 when Donna and fiddler George Wilson contacted members of the family, urging them to allow the Vermont Folklife Center to preserve their old family recordings. Archived digitally, these now comprise the Beaudoin Collection housed at the Center. Within months, a new band had sprouted up, with Beaudoin family members, friends and the next generation of French fiddlers, singers and dancers. The group was named in 2007 to the NEA's American Masterpiece Roster by the Vermont Arts Council and can be seen Aug. 2-3 at VT's Champlain Valley Folk Festival and Aug. 22-23 at the American Folk Festival in Bangor ME.
Donna's mother, Mary M. (Blair) Hinds, was born in Burlington VT, the eldest of a large French-Canadian immigrant family. She and her sister performed in dance halls and on the radio in the 1930s. Donna's Commo and Myers cousins are deeply involved in the Northeast Fiddlers' Association and Vermont fiddling. Donna learned her French fiddling skills in the early 1970s from greats like Louis Beaudoin and Gerry Robichaud, even producing a recording of Robichaud's music in 1977 for Fretless/Acazar.
Since then, Donna has played for concerts and dances and taught Louis' and Gerry's music to six NEA-sponsored apprentices in Franco-American fiddling, including Louis' grandson, Glenn Bombardier, a fiddler in the Beaudoin Legacy. Donna's first apprentice, Daniel Boucher, also plays with the group, as do other students. Donna's new instructional fiddle book, "The Fiddle Music of Louis Beaudoin" will document Louis' tunes and style.
In 2008, the Massachusetts Cultural Council also named Donna a Creative Teaching Partner in fiddling. Through the Council's Creative Schools initiative, Donna works with Massachusetts string educators, training them in fiddling and helping them fit fiddle music, pedagogy and style into the string curriculum. To aid in this work, Donna authored "Fiddling Demystified for Strings," a 70-page manual with teaching CDS.
A national ASTA clinician and adjunct fiddle instructor at Amherst College, Donna has taught fiddling at Wesleyan and the Hartt School, teaching workshops in the coming academic year again at Hartt and, for the first time, at Brown University.
In collaboration with Old Songs Festival and her partners in Groovemama, in 2000, Donna created the Great Groove Bands for young musicians age 6-18. The three-day festival teaching and performance program expanded to the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 2006. Donna also directs three summer camp weeks at Old Songs Community Center for children, adults and string teachers.
A contradance fiddler since 1972, Donna has played for many callers, including Dudley Laufman, Ralph Page, Ted Sanella and Tony Parkes. She started the Monday night contradance with Tony and Yankee Ingenuity at the Concord, MA, Scout House in 1977 and has since played for dances around the country with Rude Girls, Chanterelle and most recently, Groovemama.
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Current fiddling events on Donna's newsletter
