New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
Old Time Fiddle Session and Southcoast Lessons will host the 3rd annual “New” Bedford take on an old Appalachian holiday at Hatch Street Studios in New Bedford on December 28th.
The event runs 12:00 to 4:30pm and shares a name and mission with a long-standing Old Time tradition of musical and social gatherings between Christmas and New Years. Dubbed “Breaking Up Christmas,” the event includes playing opportunities for musicians, children’s activities, workshops, dancing, crafting, comfort food vendors, giveaways, games, and a full schedule of performances by traditional fiddle acts, dancers, performance artists, and ukulele ensembles.
3 time Rochester fiddle champion Hank Poitras, flatfoot dance instructor and multi-instrumental Armand Aromin of Providence, and New Hampshire’s banjo picking, barn dance calling, roller-blading, hula hooping, stilt-walking Old Time Dave Talmadge serve as keepers of the tradition’s roots, while local ukulele ensemble The Mighty Uketones bring a new island flare to the performance stage.
“It’s our goal to bring people together as a community, just as this tradition has done for a very long time before us, with music, dance, and social participation as our primary connecting force,” says Old Time Fiddle Session founder Jeff Angeley. As such, interactive activities for children and adults are at the center of the day’s offerings. Some highlights of the social programming include a masquerade parade, flatfoot, barn, and contra dance instruction, instrument painting, a cookie contest, a cake walk, and a whole lot of open jamming.
Old Time Fiddle Session is committed to make the festival affordable for all who are interested. This years’ festival tickets are available at a name your own price donation rate. All donations go directly to funding of the festival and music and community programming featured therein. Online tickets are available at Eventbrite. In person tickets can be found at Southcoast Lessons and from our very generous sponsor, The Symphony Music Shop in Dartmouth.
About Old Time Fiddle Session & Southcoast Lessons
Old Time Fiddle Session and Community Gathering was founded in January of 2017. It’s mission is to provide traditional fiddle music programming for the South Coast of Massachusetts in an interactive, community-based format.
In addition to the annual “Breaking Up Christmas” event, the organization hosts free regular monthly sessions on 4th Saturdays, a festive “World Fiddle Day” celebration, and a jam at the New Bedford Folk Festival. Southcoast Lessons provides individual and group music instruction at Hatch Street Studios and hosts a full slate of free social programming as well.
As a 2 time recipient of New Bedford Arts and Culture’s “Wicked Cool Places” grant, they’ve been providing free participatory dance, singing, & instrumental music series in 2019 and will be expanding those events in 2020.
