Fiddle time: Nunavut musicians head to youth summit

When Darlene Nuqingaq learned the first-ever Pan-Northern Youth Fiddle Summit would be held in Whitehorse this year, it was like music to her ears.

Young fiddlers from Nunavut, Yukon and Northwest Territories now have an event to meet, learn from each other and perform together.

It’s an idea long overdue, she said.

“We have pan-territorial Arctic Winter Games, but we don’t have anything of that nature for youth arts or music,” said Nuqingaq, who founded the Iqaluit Fiddle Club 30 years ago and continues as a member and youth instructor.

Ten young players from Iqaluit, eight Fiddle North members from Pangnirtung and two players from Igloolik are now at the summit in Yukon, which runs from Aug. 21 to 24.

The club had to fundraise $4,000 for each person making the trip.

It’s not a competition, just a chance to share their love for fiddling.

Iqaluit Fiddle Club youth members Aramea Arnatsiaq-Murphy, left, Taiga Las, Brianna Savard and Edward Lewis practise in Iqaluit recently. (Photo by Gord Howard)

“I think this trip is going to be good for more practice, but also good as exposure to see how players from across the rest of Canada or the territories are playing,” said Brianna Savard, 17, a member of the Iqaluit youth group.

She first picked up the fiddle in Grade 3 when Nuqingaq was her teacher at Joamie Ilinniarvik School. Now Savard is an after-school fiddle teacher herself, working with youngsters.

“There’s a lot to know,” she said – how to hold it on your shoulder while you play, where to find the notes with your left hand, and how tightly or loosely to hold the bow in your right hand to caress the strings to make music and not noise.

Taiga Las, 16, also sees the summit as a chance to make fiddling friends while improving her playing.

She has played the fiddle for six years and also piano, some clarinet and guitar, takes voice lessons, is a member of the Iqaluit-based Inuksuk Drum Dancers and teaches fiddle.

Las also takes private lessons for classical music, for which her fiddle becomes a violin.

She said she wants to continue studying music after high school.

“Yes, yes, I’m going into music, so I want to keep the violin-slash-fiddle with me,” Las said.

Youth members of the Iqaluit Fiddle Club meet Saturdays at Joamie school.

Meanwhile, the Strings and Things adult club members have been meeting weekly for the past 28 years at Matty McNair’s Iqaluit home.

Those sessions usually include about four fiddlers, a violist and cellist, but a pianist has joined in and a bagpiper, too.

For the youth summit, clubs had to learn nine songs they will all perform together on the final day. Two were contributed by Nunavut musicians, including Ravens on the Roof  by Gina Burgess, who Nuqingaq calls “an amazing violinist-fiddler.”

The other is a personal drum dance song written by Nuqingaq’s husband Mathew, called Sannigiyuulaugtut or How Strong They Were.

“It’s about his mother going to the sanitorium in the 1950s, so that’s going to be a really beautiful piece,” she said.

Making the young fiddlers’ experience even better, the final day of the summit coincides with the one-day Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Competition on Aug. 24, where some of Canada’s top fiddlers will compete for the overall grandmaster title.

No fiddlers from Nunavut are competing but Gustin Adjun — son of Kugluktuk fiddling legend Colin Adjun, who died in 2021, will be there to perform.

It was a meeting with Colin Adjun 30 years ago that led Nuqingaq to form the Iqaluit Fiddle Club. On Saturday, Colin Adjun is being inducted to the Canadian Fiddle Hall of Honour.

“Now his son, Gustin, is becoming a very popular fiddle player like his dad was,” said Nuqingaq, adding “so we fundraised to bring him, too.”

As a retired teacher, she said she has seen the positive effect music can have on kids as they learn.

“The kids, they just had an innate respect [for the fiddle when she taught it],” Nuqingaq said.

“I should have done research on it, because as they progressed on the fiddle their attention span for language arts and math and their skills in those subjects just went whew!” she added, whisking her hand into the air.