Fiddlers ReStrung Delight Audiences at Clinton Fall Festival

September in Michigan brings a new school year, crisp weather and shorter days. It can also inspire flights of alliterative fancy to describe fulsome foliage, football fanatics, fall festivals and of course Fiddlers ReStrung.

For 38 years, downtown Clinton, Mich., has hosted an Annual Fall Festival featuring feasts of food, fun and fine arts over three days. This year’s festival attracted the largest crowds in Lenawee County enjoying gorgeous autumn weather and a variety of entertainment and activities for the whole family.

Each of the past three years Fiddlers ReStrung has been invited to perform at the Clinton Fall Festival, and this year they were featured performers on the sound stage on both Friday and Saturday evenings. The 2011-12 edition of Fiddlers ReStrung entertained the audience crowding the stage at the festival with a familiar format of their favorite songs mixed in with new material they began integrating into their repertoire this summer.

The group performed a wide-ranging set each evening with an energetic mixture of music from Celtic to bluegrass highlighted by nimble dance steps. The appreciative festival audience included several young fans who took to the dance boards themselves to show off their own original interpretations of step dancing to accompany crowd pleasers such as “Appalachian Joy.”  The group serenaded their own student technician, Daniel Westfall, to the tune of “Big Daniel” as he accompanied the song with his percussive “bones.”

New songs introduced at the festival by the group included “Salt Spring” with solos by sophomores Mehul Kulkarni, Lee Luckhardt and Natalie Zimmerman; “D is for Pitnacree”; and “Sweetwater Sea” which featured senior keyboardist Marielle Driskell on vocals.

Fiddlers ReStrung is a 21-piece string ensemble featured at over 80 performances annually consisting of students at Saline High School, all of whom share in producing a unique ensemble truly their own. The organization is officially sponsored and supported by Saline Area Schools and Saline Community Education. Students are chosen based not only on musical talent, but personal maturity as well balancing a demanding performance schedule while maintaining high standards in other school activities, sports, and academics.

For additional information on this event or Fiddlers ReStrung, please contact Rebecca Groeb-Driskill, Cultural Arts Specialist, Saline Area Schools at (734) 429-8000 ext. 2338 or at groebr@saline.k12.mi.us.  You can also visit the group’s website at www.fiddlersrestrung.com.