Renowned Canadian pianist Doug MacPhee found a talented and passionate student of traditional Cape Breton music when he met young Maryland fiddler, Adam Bern. The two have been playing together in Cape Breton and will be performing in Maryland for the first time in January 2014.
A native of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, MacPhee is one of that area's most celebrated musicians, having appeared on numerous television and radio programs and played before the Queen of England in addition to making five solo albums and serving as an accompanist on more than 60 other recordings. He has traveled widely, performing and teaching throughout Canada and the U.S. In the 1970?s, he toured Scotland with renowned Cape Breton fiddler, Buddy MacMaster.
MacPhee has a keen interest in collecting and preserving traditional Cape Breton music. He served as sound archivist, music consultant and conservator of the Beaton Institute at Cape Breton University for twenty-three years. In April 2008, MacPhee was received into the Order of Canada for his contribution to Cape Breton traditional culture.
Bern, 21 and a junior at Cornell University, first learned about Cape Breton music at age 16, when he heard a CD at the Smithsonian Folklife festival and was immediately hooked. A regular performer at the Washington Folk Festival at Glen Echo Park, he has become something of an ambassador for Cape Breton music in the Washington, DC area.
MacPhee and Bern met in Cape Breton at a ceildh (musical gathering) four years ago when Doug was asked to accompany a young American who was going to play the fiddle. He expected Country Western music and was very pleasantly surprised to hear a non-native so adept with the Cape Breton style.
McPhee saw that Bern was interested in the old music and style of fiddling and became a mentor. Despite the difference in their age and generation, the two forged a strong musical friendship reinforced on Bern?s subsequent visits to Cape Breton, where he has spent many hours with MacPhee learning the traditional music, hearing stories about past musicians, and performing throughout the island.
The two musicians will team up onstage for a two-man concert on January 2, 2014, at 8 p.m. at the Glen Echo Town Hall. Some of the music they will perform is in ?high bass,? an alternate style of tuning the fiddle that results in a distinctive drone effect that was originally adopted to make a louder sound, back in the days before electrical amplification was available.
