Valley of the Moon Fiddler's Camp Is a Music-maker's Brigadoon
Sponsored by the Scottish Fiddlers of California, the camp was founded by fiddling legend Alasdair Fraser
Dear Reader,
Well, what began with a couple of hot, hot days and the intermittent threat of rain has finally ended with a hot, hot Celtic concert and the predictable, final downpour of bittersweet tears. Yes, after an intense 186 hours at Camp Campbell, way up in the mountains above Santa Cruz, California, the 20th annual Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School once again has come to a close.
For all those who attended, from August 22 to 30, these have been seven long days, during which new friendships have been formed, old tunes have been learned, remarkable music has been made, and a few new fiddlers have been coaxed into gleeful life. Sponsored by the Scottish Fiddlers of California and founded in 1984 by fiddling legend Alasdair Fraser, the Valley of the Moon (VOM) camp has become a worldwide model for how fiddle power—not to mention guitar, cello, piano, and percussion power—can be meaningfully and entertainingly generated.
This year, over 200 musicians of all types, ages, and levels of skill, from as far away as Canada, Scotland, France, and Sweden, met up in the redwoods for a solid week of work, study, fun, food, dancing, singing, and late-night jamming. Fraser's own Scottish fiddling tradition blended beautifully with the Appalachian and Swedish fiddling styles of Bruce Molsky and Ellika Frisell, respectively, who served as fiddle instructors alongside a team of others that included 19-year-old cello phenom Natalie Haas and guitar-master Steve Baughman.
The VOM camp has given rise to a number of beloved traditions over the years. There are cabin raids and "slow jams," a Wednesday-evening ceilidh (pronounced KAY-lee)—a much-anticipated event that plays like a demented talent show and ends in a Celtic rave party. There is even a Thursday-night costumed banquet. And there are the themed years. Nineteen-ninety-nine was "Come as Your Favorite Tune" year. For 2003, the theme was not clear—there were fairies and wizards, hippies, and WWII airmen, and a pirate or two—but the highlight was Fraser appearing as "the spirit of Music," garbed in robes and flowers, with an inflatable musical note dangling from his hat.
