NORTH AMERICAN FIDDLERS' HALL OF FAME

NORTH AMERICAN AND NEW YORK INDUCTEES

2011 INDUCTEES

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KEITH HUNT

NEW YORK INDUCTEE

Keith Hunt was born during "the great depression" and grew up on Wellesley Island on the Saint Lawrence River.  He attended the local island dances from his earliest memory, where his father played banjo with local island musicians.  Thus, he grew up with the North Country and Canadian fiddling of the area, listening to great fiddlers such as Don Messer; Ned Landry, Earl Mitton, Jim McGill, King Ginam, and others on live radio shows of the time.  Keith started out playing the music on a tenor banjo, but soon found that the fiddle tunes were better suited to playing on the fiddle.  Keith finally got a serious start on the fiddle by attending a group fiddle lesson given by Eleanor Townsend at the NYSOFTA Fiddlers' Picnic around 1978. Telleta Atwell assisted Eleanor in that class and Telleta continued working with Keith through the present.  After leaving Wellesley Island, Keith always sought the kind of dancing he knew from the island, never quite finding it the same anywhere else.  However, in his search, he ended up performing the dances of many lands and international folk dances.  Keith also learned to call traditional square and contra dances such as those he grew up with.  Even though Keith and his wife Judy are members of a Scandinavian dance performance group, Keith's first love, musically, is the traditional jigs, reels, and related dance fiddle tunres.  In the past, Keith has been the instructor for square and contra dance workshops during the 1980's at the Fiddlers' Picnic.  In 2006 Keith was a clinician at the Fiddle Worshops and he is also President of the Board of Directors for NYSOTFA

CALVIN VOLLRATH

NORTH AMERICAN INDUCTEE

Calvin's love for music began at an early age when he mimicked his fiddling father, Art "Lefty" Vollrath.  By the age of 8 he received his first fiddle and it soon became apparent that he was a natural.  By the age of 17 he was winning championships at fiddle contests and has twice won the Grand North American Old Tyme Fiddling Championship.  He has composed over 400 tunes, released over 50 CD's, several fiddle books and an instructinal DVD.  He was commissioned to write five fiddle tunes for the opening cermonies at the 2010 Winter Olympics that took place in Vancouver, Canada.  He is touted by the Saskatchewan Cultural Exchange Society as being one of the driving forces behind the revitalization of the fiddling tradition in recent years.  He teaches at the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle Camp in Ottawa every year as well as many other camps and workshops.  In 2005, Calvin received the Lifetime Achievement Award given by the Canadian Grand Masters Championship.  He also received the Bev Munro Award sponsored by the Associaiton of Country Music Legends in 2009.  He is known as a performer, teacher, composer, and judge.  He also keeps busy at his home in St. Paul, Alberta producing recordings of other fiddlers from across Canada.