There was a lot of fiddling around in Lake County recently, much of it at the David Adler Cultural Center in Libertyville.
We’re talking fiddling in its best “old-time” music definition. That is fiddling as bowed by such masters of the traditional style as folk tune collectors Bruce Green of Burnsville, N.C., and Garry Harrison of Oakland, Ill.
Green and Harrison opened the cultural center’s 3rd Annual Old Time Fiddlers’ Reunion with a concert in the Adler House Ballroom that drew close to 80 people.
And we’re talking fiddling as performed by noted local performers and tune collectors such as Adler folk music director Paul Tyler of Chicago at the open mike Jamboree, also in the ballroom later.
The action would move down the street to the American Legion Hall in Libertyville for an old time square dance. Then it was on to the Lake County Museum near Wauconda to play at the Lake County Farm Heritage, Tractor & Steam Show.
But the Jamboree was a chance for anyone who loved to play old-time music on the fiddle, banjo and assorted musical accompaniment to take the stage.
And that included a new generation of fiddlers.
Eleven-year-old Aaron Weinstein of Wilmette, a former Tyler student who plays the Evanston coffeehouses, enthralled the crowd with “Asohken Farewell,” the theme music to the PBS series “The Civil War.”
“This is great,” Aaron said. “There are not too many things around the Chicago area where fiddlers get to play,” he said.
Which is among the reasons the event attracts fine fiddlers, according to cultural center board member Alan Davis of Vernon Hills.
“There are a lot of good musicians here,” Davis said. He was watching Tyler play to an enthusiastic Jamboree crowd of about 50 musicians and music appreciators.
Another reason they came: “It’s a lot of fun,” Davis said.
