Fiddle-icious

Abstract

Don Roy is a champion fiddler from Maine, promoted and celebrated on national folkloric stages as “the finest Franco fiddler in New England, whose playing exactly exemplifies what Franco-American fiddling is all about.” Nonetheless, Mr. Roy has been reluctant to adopt or centralize institutional constructs of his identity. Since 2003 he and Cindy Roy have developed and nurtured a community around a core of music repertoire and practice. This chapter explores the relationship between Mr. Roy's role as a bearer of inherited cultural and musical traditions, and his cultivation of a sustainable music community in southern Maine, as a participatory alternative to heritage industry narratives.