NoHoldsBarred Fiddle Contest
Hi Fiddle Folk ! From 2002 till 2008 there was initially a hiatus of the Bluegrass Championships, so I decided to
run a competition to encompass inspiring the youth and simply not to forget the Fiddlers – at the very least!
Marcus Holden from Fiddlers Festival that I was also with discussed ideas and Epoch Violins had just appeared on our horizon
and we suddenly had a Sponsor!
Sponsored by Epoch Strings!
The NoHoldsBarred Australian Fiddle Contest last ran during Tamworth’s Country Music Festival January 2008 starting in 2002. The contest is open to all fiddlers (amateur or professional) of any style, not just Bluegrass and Country.
Two sections – Youth Award and Open Award.
In 2009 the Bluegrass Championships started up again finally and the focus shifted back to there for the moment.
The judges took into account all aspects of performance.
Heats ran at Andrew Clermont’s Supper Club – 6pm sessions at the North Tamworth Bowling Club on the middle Wed & Thur of Tamworth CM Festival.
Grand Final was usually held at the Fiddlers Festival Concert on the last Saturday of the Festival. Interested fiddlers should also attend the Wild Fiddle Night on the first Saturday Night of the Tamworth CM Festival – 9pm at Andrew Clermont’s Supper Club
(North Tamworth Bowling Club – Bligh St).
Competitors were restricted to one piece of music with a maximum time limit of approximately 5 minutes displaying variety to impress. There were no restrictions on the type of backing used. Judges take in account professional and/or amateur status.
First prize of a $2000 Epoch Electric/Acoustic Violin!!
The NoHoldsBarred Australian Fiddle Contest
RESULTS
Here is Stephanie Eldridge (now Ead) – our first price winner of 2002
She won our sponsor’s Australia Model Epoch Acoustic/ Electric Fiddle.
A $2000 win plus by chance there was a surprise call to be included in the
Opening Performance of the2002 Golden Guitar Awards that year as well.
She had just that week studied upthe Orange Blossom Special and that happened to also be the request of the GG Awards.
In her solo within the performance she drew on her classical back ground and slipped some Bach Sonatas
and I can recall Tommy Emmanuel in the Green Room, make some “What The %$@!” gestures on how cool that was.
She went on to team with Supper Club performances annually for quite a few years together with her cellist sister
Annette while also focusing on baroquestudies and years later returning with Goldheist in concert as well!
2002
WInner Stephanie Eldridge (Ead) at 12 years old!
It was a very tough call up against “kids’ like Davidson Bros !
2003
In this year The Gypsy Hot Club from Armidale “cleaned up” all the places
Willow wins outright first on a violin made by her father, renown classical guitar maker, Jeff Kemp
Lachlan O’Donnell 2nd, Sujata Allen 3rd.
Her group The Imprints became the first Australian group to perform in Greenland !!
2004
No Holds Barred Fiddle Contest Entrants
Winner – Lachlan O’Donnell
Runner-up – Sujata Allan
Youth Award – Emily Little
Jhana Allan
Penny Wright
Frankie Haubreich
2004
Winner 2004 – Lachlan O’Donnell who then progressed to The Australian Chamber Orchestra!
2004
Runner-up 2004 – Sujata Allan
She forged into Old-timey Music on Claw Hammer Banjo as well as Fiddle (while also becoming a Doctor!)
2004
Emily kept on with Fiddle (see Youtube here) and also Truck driving up & down the East Coast of Australia
with her BluGuru Epoch Fiddle in the back seat for times of waiting!
2005
No Holds Barred Fiddle Contest Entrants
JESS RANDALL – All Over Winner
ANNA DISHER – Youth Winner
CALLULA KILLINGLY – Encouragement Award
Plus wonderous performances from
JO LACK, DAVID RABINOVICI, MIRANDA WARD, PHILLIP WATT
Anna Disher competing resulting in her Encouragment Award
RIP Anna Disher !
WIth great sadness we continue with condolences to the Disher family
who lost Anna in the same year in a tragic traffic accident just outside her home at Kootingal near Tamworth.
I’d had the pleasure of teaching her off & on over the last years and was looking forward to some time together this
month at home – alas the busy year. She said she’d always be a kid – too sadly true indeed. Last friday was most
amazing funeral service with full Tamworth Symphony (she’d been 1st violin), choir and video/ multimedia of her
zestful life brought us all undone.
A rose coloured balloon from each symphony member with a message to beloved Anna, were released into a tumbling
sky. I was asked to play the pieces she had won with earlier in January. Catharsis & Possum Up a Gum Stump 2 all time
favourites of mine as well. She was one of the greatest kids to teach – there was a river of tears coming out of the
Baptist church
Overall Winner Jess Randall
who stormed through the years after with The Crooked Fiddle Band recording in Detroit USA and
featured on the Golden Fiddle Show CD from 2018 as Devil on the Rooftop !
Runner Up – Savannah Jo Lack
the Contest went into an electrifying extra play off between these two extremely classy players.
She followed her path both around Australia with a John Wibberly tour and settled in San Francisco writing string
arrangements on the way for Michael Fix through to Alana Morissette!
I remember nicknaming her “One Note Jo” – just one note and you were hooked by her!
Callula Killingly
received the Encouragement Award
13 years later in 2018 was in the Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra on Viola !
2006
Sally Carter , though not in the actual Comp, did roll up that night and slotted right in with the scheme of things 🙂 (Pink Epoch Fiddle) performing now in Victoria, Australia as an entertainer and music therapist in Aged Care Facilities, Day Respite Centres, Senior Citizen’s Clubs and Supported Residential Services Facilities.
Cheers to Emma & Aiden for stepping forward to the fray in competition
2006
Emma Barlow became Emma Beau see her on Facebook, touring with Kasey Chambers and much more
2006
Aiden Patrick and Emma Barlow – received Youth Awards – both from Gympie, Queensland
2007
And please a big cheer to NoHoldsBarred Fiddle Contest Winners –
Connor Macgregor (Youth) & George Jackson (Senior) and all the brave entries
plus warm thanks to the judges, George Washingmachine &
Golden Fiddle Award Winning Teacher – Kylie McIvor and
Marcus Holden & Fiddlers Feast for hosting the finals.
Note: George Jackson is these days touring from Nashville
and very close with amazing Fiddler Rachel Baiman (10 String Symphony)
Essential listening !
2008
Judge Tom Fitzgerald (RIP) Somara Redman, 16; Louise Brown, 12; Caitlin McGowan, 17 enter and as they won
that night in this order – 1st to 3rd – so it went at the Finals on the Saturday in the Regent Theatre to follow!
Only youth entering, for the first time in the Contests history. Congratulations girls – 1st prize the EV – 4 Epoch
Electric Violin of near $2000 value with the runners up receiving $100 each from a privately supporting family in Tamworth!
Note: Somara Redman is these last years, the strings teacher at Tamworth Conservatorium!
Hereafter the Bluegrass Championships kicked back in again and so
the NoHoldsBarred Comp remembers as can, and celebrates our diverse ranged & youth Fiddlers/ Violinists
Here Dev’lish Mary with Clermont & Montz Matsumoto set the mood in 2008