Fiddling in the Holidays and a New Governor

I believe I’ve written before about Tomas entering into the Franklin County Fiddlers. (Just checked: yup.) For those of you who never click links and don’t know who the Fiddlers are, they’re our school’s musical pride and joy. Tomas has been going to rehearsals and performances since the beginning of the year, and there are many of them.

Over the holidays, we got to go to the best musical concert I’ve heard our school district have so far: Home for the Holidays. It was a three hour show that consisted of small groups, large groups, solos, alumni performances, and more. I was really impressed by the amount of skill and enthusiasm shown, and this is coming from a self-confessed musical snob. I was just sad I hadn’t started going earlier. If you’ve made the same mistake and live locally, you should definitely check it out next year. (And come early–that place fills up!)

The second big Fiddler performance of the holidays was last night, when they were invited to perform at the inauguration ceremony of Janet Mills, Maine’s new governor. (The first woman to be elected, and the first person from Franklin County to be elected, as well.) She lives right in Farmington (we trick or treat at her house every year), and she’s a big Fiddlers fan. The invitation was significant: only two other musical numbers were invited, and the Fiddlers were the only school group.

They streamed the performance live, and it was shown on MPBN and WCSH television (though a short aside to gripe about WCSH: they spoke over 2/3 of the performance, even going so far as to say “We know some people are mad at us for talking over the fiddle performance” and then continuing to blather on anyway. That was very frustrating and rude.) If you want to see the full video of their performance, head over here. Their spot starts at the one hour, nine minute mark. (Though the site was pretty slow to load for me, as a fair warning.)

It was fun to talk to Tomas afterward and hear how excited he was by the whole thing. A great experience for him and the other Fiddlers, and I was so happy they had the chance to go and perform. A huge shoutout to Steve Muise, their director, who does a tremendous job building that musical talent and camaraderie locally. You all were wonderful!

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