Eh?! Fab Fiddle Trio

The Flying Cloud Folk Club Presents:

Eh?! Fab Fiddle Trio

Eh?! is a new collaborative fiddle-based trio of Emilyn Stam, Anne Lederman and James Stephens. Solidly rooted in traditional styles, Eh?! is dedicated to exploring the myriad pathways between older fiddle traditions and newly created music, as well as well as to bringing together veteran fiddlers and young musicians in creative exploration. All three core members of Eh?! sing and play several instruments besides fiddle, so that voices, piano, mandolin, cittern, guitar, feet, percussion and accordion all weave their way through an Eh?! experience. Devoted also to collaboration and improvisation, anything can happen at an EH?! event.

Emilyn Stam performs, composes and teaches piano and fiddle. Having recently moved to Toronto from BC where she worked closely with Oliver Schroer as a founding member of Twisted String, she is quickly being recognized as a versatile accompanist, innovative improviser, and creative collaborator. She has also worked with Pierre Schryer, Daniel Lapp, David Woodhead, Anne Lindsay, Bill Brennan, Casey Sokol, Soozi Schlanger and Jaron Freeman-Fox. Emilyn has recently released her debut album, Holding Time – a beautiful collection of unedited solo piano improvisations recorded in the summer of 2008.

Originally from Manitoba, Anne Lederman is a fiddler, singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist strongly rooted in several musical traditions - Celtic, Metis and French-Canadian, Klezmer, Balkan and jazz. Over her 30 year career, Anne has worked with such bands as Muddy York, The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, Siyakha, and LOKA and such artists as Harry Hibbs, Margaret Christl, Don Freed, Holly Cole, Theresa Tova, Tom Leadbeater and Garnet Rogers, among others. She has her own band, Fiddlesong, and also performs with Njacko Backo and Kalimba Kalimba. She has recorded four CDs under her own name: Not a Mark in This World, 7 Cats, Come From Every Way and Fiddlesong. Anne also composes and performs for theatre, most recently, Roseneath Theatre's Spirit Horse. Her own play, Spirit of the Narrows, about the Metis fiddle tradition, was featured at the Blyth Theatre Festival in 2004 and 2005.

James Stephens is known for his work both as a performer and producer/recording engineer. In performance, he plays a multitude of stringed instruments with an emphasis on fiddling. He has an abiding interest in traditional forms and styles of various ethnic origins, but also works extensively with singersongwriters and was the principal songwriter in critically acclaimed pop/roots band ′Fat Man Waving′. He has performed with many Ottawa area singer/songwriters such as Jennifer Noxon, Lynn Miles, Ian Tamblyn, Melwood Cutlery, and Terry Tufts and spent 10 years playing in popular local C&W/Texas Swing group, The Black Donnellys, and neo-traditional Celtic group, Six Mile Bridge. Currently, he performs with The Brian Pickell Band, Finest Kind, Ecosse (Bobby Watt, Duncan Gillis and Rob Graves), renowned clawhammer banjo player Ken Perlman, whistle player/composer Frank Cassidy (The McGee Band), and JIIG (James, Ian Robb, Ian Clark, Greg Brown) whose self-titled CD won a Canadian Folk Music Award in 2005. James also teaches regularly at fiddle camps throughout Canada and the US.