Day 12 - Randy Sawatzky - 2021 Canadian Fiddlers’ Advent Calendar

Day 12

Randy Sawatzky featuring Dave and Charlotte Poulsom

Carol of the Bagpipers

Hi everyone, I’m Randy Sawatzky, originally from Winnipeg, MB and now residing in Calgary, AB. I started playing the fiddle 10 years ago.

Watching my kids and my wife taking piano lessons inspired me to pick up a fiddle and start to learn. Since then, I have been playing a little clawhammer banjo and guitar as well.

I am fortunate to live in a city with an extremely vibrant fiddle/music community, there is always something going on, or an opportunity to be had.

I met Dave and his Daughter Charlotte at the Prairie Mountain Fiddler Slow pitch jam sessions back in 2013. I recruited Dave to play with me at a Fiddle jamboree that the club was putting on, and we have been playing together ever since. Dave is a wonderful guitar player, but you might just find him plucking away at his mandolin, or tenor banjo, or squeezing out some Cajun tune in his Cajun Accordion. His daughter Charlotte, growing up in a musical household, has an incredible ear for music. As well as playing violin, she also has an incredible voice and plays guitar, mandolin, and whistle.

Together, we try to play every weekend, enjoying a wide variety of music styles. We seem to always have something going on, whether it’s a fiddle jam in the park, an open mic, a fiddle/acoustic music camp or music retreat to a cabin in the mountains, and even on occasion a fiddle contest.

Lately we have been writing quite a bit of music and enjoying the process of working together to get the sound that we are looking for in a tune.

This is a tune called Carol of the Bagpipers. We came across a recording of this somewhere a few years back and enjoyed it. I didn’t know anything about where it came from, but a quick internet search tells me that “This Sicilian carol is traditionally played on bagpipes by shepherds who serenade Italian villagers the nine days before Christmas.” Anyhow, hope you enjoy it, and thanks again for inviting us to play for this!

Thanks to Randy, Dave, and Charlotte for taking part in this year’s advent calendar. The joy you all have while playing music together is so evident and lovely to see.