It just never occurred to me. My sister sang, and so did my dad. I was the fiddle player, but then Rounder asked me to give it a try and see how it goes. Two hours of fiddle music -- even if you're a fiddle fan -- is a lot. (The singing) could open up a lot of doors.
"April Verch" is a Canadian fiddler and step dancer born and raised in the community of Papineau-Cameron, Ontario/Rankin, Ontario, located approximately 15 km southwest from Pembroke, Ontario/Pembroke, Ontario. She attended Berklee College of Music in Boston before embarking on her professional career. While she is best known for playing traditional Ottawa Valley style fiddle tunes, Verch's repertoire branches into many other fiddle styles. She has appeared as performer and teacher at Mark O'Connor's Fiddle Camps.
* 1997 Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle Champion
* 1998 Canadian Open Fiddle Champion.
* 2010 Performer at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
More April Verch on Wikipedia.The style of dance that I do is called Ottawa Valley Step Dancing. The area was settled by people who came to work in lumber camps. They were mainly French, Irish, Scottish, German and Polish. They traded fiddle tunes and used their feet to accompany themselves. The dance style developed that way, but it's certainly evolved a lot since then.
It's energetic and very high off the ground. Some styles of step dancing in Canada are close to the ground. They're rhythmic, but there isn't a lot of lifting and jumping and hopping. But in the Ottawa Valley style, we don't stand straight and there's a lot of flailing around.
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