The Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance

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Ellsworth, ME
The Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance

Dedicated to celebrating Celtic-influenced music and dance through classes, workshops and concerts.

For centuries, Downeast Maine has flourished as a crossroads for many styles of music and dance: Acadian, Cape Breton, Irish, Scottish and Quebecois – just to name a few. The Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance is dedicated to promoting education and appreciation of these traditions through an annual celebration held June 26-July 2, 2023 at the beautiful oceanfront campus of College of

the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. Since 2013, Acadia Trad has brought world-class performers, students and the public together for awe-inspiring nightly concerts and dances, as well as daily classes and workshops. Our flagship program, Acadia Trad School, is a weeklong intensive program offering unparalleled instruction in fiddle, dance, piano, guitar, flute and other disciplines. Students of all ability levels and a wide range of ages (adults and children 12 years and up) are welcome. Full-time students spend the week in intensive studies, jam sessions and fun. A wide selection of afternoon workshops, dances and concerts are open to the public. Instrumental classes are taught in the aural tradition, with an emphasis on learning by ear. Shortly after the former Acadia Trad School 501(c)(3) disbanded in 2020, a dedicated group of volunteers began working to give new life to a reimagined festival in time for summer 2023. Explore acadiatradfestival.org to learn more about our mission and history, how to register for Trad School or purchase concert tickets, and ways you can support Acadia Trad.

12/01/2024

Pianists, we've got you covered! 🙋 Whether you're looking to spice up your skills, or to enter the world of trad on your chosen instrument for the first time, Susan & Jake are ready to help you on your way. Let your friends know! Browse our website program and faculty pages for more info, and don't delay in registering to join us to study piano at ! 🎹

11/29/2024

Over 130 students have benefited from our scholarship program since its inception. 🎖 Here’s one of those grateful students, Emilio Torres-Roseberry, to share his thoughts with us. We are currently raising funds for our 2025 Scholarship, Artistic Work Study & Artists in Residence Programs. 🙋‍♂️ If you are able to contribute and help us meet our $8000 goal, please know how much it will be appreciated. 👉 https://acadiatradfestival.org/donate/ All donations are tax deductible. 💵 Our scholarship applications remain open and are available to students at any age and with any amount of experience in their discipline. https://acadiatradfestival.org/apply-for-a-scholarship/

11/27/2024

✨ Please join us in welcoming KIERAN JORDAN to our Faculty! 🌟 Kieran will be teaching DANCE. 🎶

Kieran Jordan is an Irish dance performer, teacher, and choreographer based in Boston. Her lyrical and expressive style draws from her background in contemporary dance, somatic movement practices, and more than 40 years of immersion in traditional Irish music and dance. Regarded as “one of America’s premier dancers and instructors” (Irish Echo), she is known especially for her creative contributions in sean-nós and old-style step dancing. In Boston, she has fostered a vibrant non-competitive dance community through her company, Kieran Jordan Dance, which has been active in the region for more than two decades.

Winner of two Massachusetts Artist Fellowships, Kieran holds an M.A. from the University of Limerick, a B.A. from Boston College, and the TCRG certification for teaching Irish dance. She has taught on the Irish Studies faculty at Boston College, and at festivals including the Willie Clancy Summer School, Catskills Irish Arts Week, Augusta Heritage Center, and more — and she is the Dance Director for the Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance in Maine.

With a deepening focus at the intersections of dance, movement, and healing arts, Kieran is Board Certified in Polarity Therapy, with a private practice in Dorchester, Massachusetts and Kennebunk, Maine.

11/24/2024

✨ Please join us in welcoming JAKE CHARRON to our Faculty! 🌟 Jake will be teaching PIANO. 🎹

Jake Charron has been busy the past 10 years writing music and touring the world with Juno award-winning band The East Pointers. When he is not on the road, he is in the studio, producing and recording music with some of the finest musicians on the scene. As a multi-instrumentalist and collaborator, Jake has released critically acclaimed duo albums with Grammy-nominated fiddle player Liz Carroll, and Canada’s award winning fiddler Shane Cook. Jake is a co-founder of SpaceCamp Studios in Charlottetown, and has been recording and producing new music for The East Pointers (PE), Kinley (PE), Inn Echo (PE), Trials of Cato (UK), Waymzy (ON), Trad Attack (Estonia), and his newly formed group “6 Hearts”, a project featuring members of The East Pointers and Vishten.

11/22/2024

Many thanks to all of you who have supported our 2025 Fundraising Campaign. 👏 We are steadily climbing towards our goal of raising $8000. 💪 Here’s Claudia Castro, one of our 2024 scholarship recipients with her thoughts on the program and festival. 💃 Please consider supporting next summer’s Scholarship, Artistic Work Study & Artists in Residence Programs by making a tax deductible donation if you are inspired to. https://acadiatradfestival.org/donate/ 🫶

If a scholarship would benefit you or someone you know, please apply! https://acadiatradfestival.org/apply-for-a-scholarship/

11/20/2024

🎻 Please join us in welcoming MARI BLACK to our Faculty! 🌟 Mari will be teaching FIDDLE. 🎶

Multistyle violinist & champion fiddler Mari Black's virtuosic fiddling, sparkling stage presence, and commitment to bringing people together through music have made her a favorite with audiences across the country and around the world. A master of diverse musical styles and winner of several major international competitions, Mari sweeps her audiences away on a spirited musical adventure featuring dance music from around the globe: Celtic, American, & Canadian fiddling, jazz, klezmer, and more!

11/17/2024

🎶 Please join us in welcoming ISA BURKE to our Faculty! 🌟 Isa will be teaching GUITAR.⚡

Isa Burke is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and producer. Whether singing harmony vocals, playing traditional fiddle tunes, or crafting spiky yet atmospheric electric guitar sounds, she brings a voracious musical appetite and a spirit of collaboration to a vast array of projects. Raised in a musical family in Maine, Isa soon found her way to Boston, where she studied fiddle and songwriting at Berklee College of Music and dove headfirst into the area's thriving music scene. In 2014 she co-founded the indie-folk band Lula Wiles, which released three albums on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and toured internationally until 2021. Isa has spent recent years building a reputation as a versatile and in-demand collaborator, a musical Swiss Army knife at home in many styles and contexts. She was a member of Aoife O'Donovan's touring band from 2021 to 2023 (earning a nomination for Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2023 Americana Music Awards), and recently became the newest touring member of cult-favorite indie band the Mountain Goats. She has toured and recorded with many other artists including Lindsay Lou, Jake Blount, Darlingside, Mipso, Rosier, Laura Cortese, Session Americana, Sam Moss, and Liv Greene (whose debut album Isa produced). Isa is also an experienced and devoted music educator, and a longtime fiddle camper.

11/15/2024

🧑‍🎓 Scholarships are available to students at any age and with any amount of experience in their discipline. Today, Adam McLean shares what a scholarship meant to him last summer. 🤍 We hope you’ll consider making a tax deductible donation towards our 2025 Fundraising Campaign. Our goal is to raise $8000 to fund next summer’s Scholarship, Artistic Work Study & Artists in Residence Programs. https://acadiatradfestival.org/donate/ Scholarship applications are open to all now through the end of January. https://acadiatradfestival.org/apply-for-a-scholarship/ 🙏

11/13/2024

✨ Please join us in welcoming DAN FAIELLA to our Faculty! 🌟 Dan will be teaching GUITAR. 🎸

Dan Faiella is a guitarist specializing in traditional Celtic music. Trained as an accompanist through years of playing for New England contra dances and for Irish fiddlers, he has performed at venues and festivals around the country with numerous traditional music groups, as well as in a duo with his sister and longtime musical collaborator, fiddler and singer Liz Faiella. In his solo playing, Dan’s fingerstyle arrangements of traditional songs and tunes draw extensively on techniques and ornamentation from traditional idioms beyond those directly related to the guitar, such as Celtic harp-playing, sean-nós singing, and uilleann piping. Over many years of playing solo and collaboratively, he has developed an ability to adapt and synthesize these sounds into the context of the unique arrangement capabilities of the guitar.

11/10/2024

✨ Please join us in welcoming ERYNN MARSHALL to our Faculty! 🌟 Erynn will be teaching FIDDLE. 🎻

Erynn Marshall is an old-time fiddler who lives in Hillsville, Virginia and is known internationally for her traditional music. She learned the nuances of Appalachian old-time fiddling from visiting elder, southern fiddlers and through her love of archival recordings. Erynn was the first woman to win 1st place fiddle at Clifftop (The Appalachian Stringband Festival) among other awards and is featured in the 2023 exhibit, "Women of Old-Time Music," at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum (Bristol, VA). Erynn and husband Carl Jones have toured and taught at music camps across North America, Europe, China and Australia. Erynn has numerous recordings, is featured in five films, three books, and is coordinator for Swannanoa Old-Time & Dance Week (NC).

11/08/2024

We’re one 1️⃣ week into our 2025 Fundraising Campaign! Today we’d like to introduce you to 2024 scholarship recipient, Alden Gilg. Our Scholarship, Artistic Work Study & Artists in Residence Programs are 100% funded by generous donations from you, our Trad Family. 👫 Please consider making a tax deductible donation to help us 📥meet our goal of raising $8000 to fund next summer’s programs. 👉 https://acadiatradfestival.org/donate/ Scholarship applications are open to all now through the end of January. https://acadiatradfestival.org/apply-for-a-scholarship/ 📥

11/06/2024

⚡ Please join us in welcoming BEN GAGLIARDI to our Faculty! 🌟 Ben will be teaching SINGING. 🗣

Benedict Gagliardi is a Rhode Island-based singer and musician whose style is the product of the eclectic folk-scape of New England. With his partner, Armand Aromin, he fosters an active social singing community in central RI where he organizes pub sings and advocates for adaptive change and reinterpretation of traditional material via intentional folk processing. An adept and inventive Anglo concertina player, Benedict instigates playful energy within the groove of any tune. He occasionally writes songs (usually about bugs) but more often exhumes and reanimates old songs and tunes pertaining to an array of thematic interests. Together with Armand Aromin and Flannery Brown he performs as The Vox Hunters. In non-musical life, he manages a natural history collection at The Edna Lawrence Nature Lab at Rhode Island School of Design.

11/05/2024

Hey Trad Lovers! We're looking for someone to join our team and assist with merchandise for the festival. It would be a bonus if this person was local to MDI, however, we may be able to develop the role without that requirement. If this is of interest to you, email [email protected] to learn more!

(*Please note: this role would conflict with taking afternoon workshops during the festival. Handing cash & electronic sales will be necessary.)

11/03/2024

⚡ Please join us in welcoming MÀIRI CHAIMBEUL to our Faculty! 🎶 Màiri will be teaching HARP. 🙌

Mairi Chaimbeul is a JUNO-nominated harp player and composer from the Isle of Skye in Scotland. A native Gaelic speaker, Màiri is known for their versatile sound, rooted in language and tradition, combined with a distinctive improvising voice and expressive rhythmic approach. Currently based in rural Nova Scotia, after almost a decade in Boston MA, Màiri tours regularly throughout North America, the UK, and Europe. Màiri can be heard regularly in duo with leading US/Scottish fiddler Jenna Moynihan, CFMA-winning prog-trad group Aerialists, and the ECMA-nominated improvised-music group Quilting. Màiri has collaborated, recorded and performed with a wide range of artists including Darol Anger, Eleanor Buckland (Lula Wiles), Liz Carroll, Rose Cousins, and Bruce Molsky. Màiri was Berklee College of Music’s lever harp and Celtic music professor from 2018-2021, and maintains a small online private teaching studio as well as regularly teaching at short courses and camps internationally. Màiri is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music, where she was awarded the American Roots award, before joining the college's faculty in 2018.

11/01/2024

Today we’re kicking off our 2025 Fundraising Campaign! 🙌
Here’s Nora Carroll to tell you what a scholarship meant to her last summer. Have a watch, and please consider making a tax deductible donation to help us meet our goal of raising $8000 to fund next summer’s Scholarship, Artistic Work Study & Artists in Residence Programs. 👉 https://acadiatradfestival.org/donate/
📥 Scholarship applications are open to all now through the end of January. https://acadiatradfestival.org/apply-for-a-scholarship/ 🎶

10/30/2024

🌟Please join us in welcoming Marie-Soleil Pilette to our Faculty! 💃🏻 Marie-Soleil will be teaching DANCE. 🎶

Marie-Soleil Pilette has been working in traditional Québec dance for over 25 years. Choreographer, stepdancer, and caller, she calls traditional Québec dance evenings in Canada and the United States. She is an active member of the Danse Trad Waterville committee, and the Danse Trad Sherbrooke collective, which organize traditional Québec dances in Eastern Townships, Québec. Graduate of contemporary dance from UQAM and founder of the SANS TEMPS danse company, she played a leading role in the revival of Québec stepdancing on stage in the 2000s. She has also performed and taught stepdancing and Québec traditional dance in different places in North America and Europe, notably with the group Rapetipetam alongside Pierre Chartrand, but also as a guest dancer with various music groups. Marie-Soleil has helped train several dancers and choreographers who are active in dance today. She is a dynamic and valued instructor.

10/27/2024

🎻 Please join us in welcoming DEVON LÉGER to our Faculty! 🌟 Devon will be teaching FIDDLE. ⚡

Devon Léger is a second generation fiddler who has spent many years studying the wild traditions of Acadian fiddling. He specializes in the Acadian fiddling of New Brunswick, his father's home province, and in the playing of Acadian fiddlers like André à Toto Savoie, Eloi LeBlanc, and Vilbon le Violoneux. Acadian fiddling is still one of the least known fiddle traditions in North America, and Léger has been rooting out this old, strange, and beautiful style of fiddling for a long time now. He's learned from archives, field recordings, and has tracked down elder fiddlers across Canada to learn from directly. He's currently working on tracing the roots of the instrumental tunes from Western France, through the Acadian provinces, and down ultimately to Louisiana's Cajun communities. He primarily performs in his family band, La Famille Léger with his father, Louis, and his wife, Dejah. He teaches Acadian fiddling, presents a series of videos on YouTube about these traditions, and has led French-Canadian jam sessions for over 20 years in the Pacific Northwest.

10/23/2024

✨ Please join us in welcoming SUSAN MACLEAN to our Faculty! 🌟 Susan will be teaching PIANO. 🎹

Susan MacLean, resides in the Sydney area of Cape Breton and comes from a deeply rooted musical background. She has taught Cape Breton style piano accompaniment annually since the mid 90’s at St. Ann’s Gaelic College – Colaisde na Gàidhlig. She has recorded thirty online instructional videos with the Gaelic College which they sell via their Learn with Us programming. She is a board member of the Cape Breton Fiddlers’ Association, plays fiddle and also composes music. Susan is also a founding committee member of the Treasures of Youth (Stóras na h-Òigridh) committee set up by the Nova Scotia Highland Village Museum. Susan’s enthusiasm for Cape Breton style piano comes from influences within her own extended family including her late grandfather Michael Anthony MacLean, late uncles Carl and Hector MacKenzie, cousins the Barra MacNeils, as well as great aunt Theresa Morrison and great uncle Joe W. MacLean.

Susan is a notable presence at events such as Cape Breton's Celtic Colours International Festival and Kitchen Fest. She is renowned for her piano talents and has been featured on several recordings over the past number of years.

Address

PO Box 723
Ellsworth, ME
04605

Website

http://www.acadiatradfestival.org/

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Videos

2024 Scholarship Recipient: Emilio!

Meet Claudia - a proud 2024 Scholarship Recipient!

Many thanks to all of you who have supported our 2025 Fundraising Campaign. 👏 We are steadily climbing towards our goal of raising $8000. 💪 Here’s Claudia Castro, one of our 2024 scholarship recipients with her thoughts on the program and festival. 💃 Please consider supporting next summer’s Scholarship, Artistic Work Study & Artists in Residence Programs by making a tax deductible donation if you are inspired to. https://acadiatradfestival.org/donate/ 🫶 If a scholarship would benefit you or someone you know, please apply! https://acadiatradfestival.org/apply-for-a-scholarship/

Meet 2024 Scholarship Recipient - Adam McLean!

Meet Alden Gilg, one our 2024 Scholarship Recipients!

Today we’re kicking off our 2025 Fundraising Campaign! 🙌 Here’s Nora Carroll to tell you what a scholarship meant to her last summer. Have a watch, and please consider making a tax deductible donation to help us meet our goal of raising $8000 to fund next summer’s Scholarship, Artistic Work Study & Artists in Residence Programs. 👉 https://acadiatradfestival.org/donate/ 📥 Scholarship applications are open to all now through the end of January. https://acadiatradfestival.org/apply-for-a-scholarship/ 🎶

New YouTube Playlist!

🎥 While you plan for registration to open on October 1st, you might like to visit our new YouTube playlist 👉 https://bit.ly/4etQ63w with videos about our groups for music or dance classes, about how the programs will flow, our philosophy, and more. This is a playlist we’ll update as time goes on with more helpful information to help you make decisions and prepare for next summer! ☀️

Our closing dance...except it kept going and going into the wee hours!

Our Thursday night faculty concert finale included everyone joining in from their seats. Music and dance filled the auditorium, and joy filled our hearts 🩷

Màiri Chaimbeul leading her workshop on "Scottish Waulking Melodies" today! 🤩 Our afternoon programs are available for sale in person up until they start, so please feel free to join us! https://acadiatradfestival.org/workshops/

Part of tonight's finale from our Monday night concert: ‘Round the House – and Mind the Dresser! What a first full day of the festival. Thank you all for the part you are playing to make it happen!

The last dance of the first night - yipppppppp! 👏

#AcadiaJigJam2024 🥳 Send me your version by email and I'll post it, or post it yourself with the hashtag so we can all find it! View the original post about this great tune, with sheet music link & Frank's very own tutorial in the comments here: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=985534626906599&set=a.535613285232071

Shortcuts

Thank you for seven incredible years!

Due to a variety of personal, organizational, and logistical factors, the 501(c)3 entity known as the Acadia School of Traditional Music and Arts is formally closed as of August 1, 2020.

Over the past seven years, we have built a community that spans the country and the world. We’ve inspired countless students of all ages to bring traditional music and dance into their lives, and to keep it there. We’ve brought programming to local schools and performance venues, infusing Down East Maine with the traditions we so adore. All of this has been accomplished by a small group of dedicated volunteers, to whom we will be ever grateful.

Music and dance are particularly special art forms, ones that – much like life itself – must be appreciated for their fleeting, momentary nature. Like beautiful Tibetan sand mandalas, they are created slowly and carefully by a community, appreciated for a time, and then brushed away, the individual grains of sand free to become another work of art. We close knowing we have created something powerful, and something beautiful that has touched many, many lives.

We are extremely proud of what we have accomplished, and even prouder that our mission can continue with the support of countless other organizations in Maine and across the globe. To that end, as part of our closure proceedings, all assets of the Acadia Trad School will be transferred to the Maine Traditional Music Association, the parent organization of the legendary Maine Fiddle Camp. We urge you to support their efforts as you have ours.