Few countries love the fiddle as much as Canada …

& few young Canadian fiddlers today can show off the breadth and range of North American fiddling like Adrianna Ciccone.  

A native of Northern Ontario, Adrianna lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia where she runs Merry Time Music Company - a community minded music school in the city’s historic Hydrostone neighbourhood.

Raised in the Ottawa Valley fiddle tradition and greatly inspired by Québécois fiddling, Adrianna cut her teeth at fiddle camps across Ontario and Canada, and competed (and won many awards) in national and international fiddle competitions. A graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Adrianna took advantage of her time there to expand her dance fiddling to new traditions and to push her musical talent in new directions.

On her much-awaited debut album, The Back of Winter, Adrianna crosses back and forth across the continent with ease, showcasing Scottish reels from Cape Breton, crooked French-Canadian brandys from Québec, the rollicking rhythms of Ottawa Valley stepdancing tunes, all the way down to Southern Appalachian stringband tunes; she even incorporates Irish and Métis influences. This is dance music through and through – you can hear from the exacting rhythms of her fiddling that Adrianna is also an award-winning stepdancer. Produced by Appalachian fiddle master Bruce Molsky, The Back of Winter won Instrumental Artist of the Year at the 2015 Canadian Folk Music Awards.

 

“What makes Adrianna extraordinary is her gift of not just technical virtuosity, but the ability and desire to try new ideas, musical languages and make the instrument truly speak.”

— Bruce Molsky