Cortes Island

Canadian fiddler, teacher and musical entertainer who has performed in Russia, Europe, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, USA, and from coast to coast across Canada.

 

After a fun filled international touring and performance career, Calvin took up residence on Salt Spring Island in 1994 and began teaching fiddle. There he founded the Saltspring Fiddlers before moving to Victoria in 1996.

 

From 1996 to 2007 he taught folk fiddling at the Victoria Conservatory of Music where he established the Conservatory Fiddlers Orchestra, an ensemble of over sixty fiddlers ages six to eighty-six.

 

Since 2004, Calvin has taught with the Kole Crook Fiddle Association in remote First Nations communities of the Northwest Territories. He continues to travel and teach regularly in these northern communities.

In 2011 Calvin was invited to teach in the First Nations communities of the Chilcotin – Caribou district of British Columbia. Since 2011, He has collaborated with community Health Departments and mental health clinician, Deb Trampleasure to create a youth suicide preventive fiddling program.

 

Calvin continues to teach at fiddle camps and perform regularly along the West Coast.

 

For more detailed information, visit Calvin Cairns

Anne Schaefer was born in small town Saskatchewan into a family of musicians, surrounded by instruments. Trained classically in piano, voice, violin and French Horn, Anne garnered numerous accolades, scholarships and awards in local and provincial music competitions and was a member of the Provincial Youth Orchestra and Youth Choir for many youthful years. The teens brought Anne to diversify in order to reach the angst ridden corners of songwriting with guitar and the exploration of Jazz, thus beginning her process of coolification. 

 

Anne’s love and curiosity for Jazz secured her a coveted place at McGill University in the Jazz Performance Program as one of only two vocalists admitted that year. Following her studies Anne toured with Quebecoise artist, Caroline Dufour and eventually moved to Argentina where she would work with her acclaimed genre fusing trio, Schaefer-Solino-Campos for the next four years and eat a great deal of the highest grade beef know to man.

 

Returning to Canada, Anne immersed herself in a solo career which would launch with Vocalist of the Year (2004 IMA) and Songwriter of the Year and Artist of the Year at the 2005 IMA for her debut album, “Twelve Easy Pieces” and continue with her just follow up, “The Waiting Room”. In January 2014 she divested herself of all her worldly possessions and embarked on a personal pilgrimage, musical inspiration and grand adventure that took her to Bosnia, Slovenia, Ireland and beyond, writing and recording continually as she went. 2015 finds her back in Victoria and excited at the beautiful surroundings once again of land and people.

 

Anne has toured and taught on three continents, had spectacular adventures in music with colleagues and students alike. She believes that music is every human’s birthright and that all our connections are enhanced through the enjoyment of it whether it’s playing, singing, listening or writing it. She continues to blow with the wind and is grateful and delighted at the beauty and mystery of it all.