2025 Adjudicators

Originally from Manitoba, Anne is a traditional fiddler, singer, composer, multi-instrumentalist and storyteller/playwright who has championed many forms of trad/world music in Canada – Celtic-Canadian fiddle traditions, Indigenous fiddling, Klezmer music, African-Canadian music and more.

She was a founding member of Muddy York, The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, LOKA and Eh?! and currently plays solo, as part of Lederman/Bell, and with Portage, a new fiddle supergroup of players from throughout North America. Anne has 5 CDs under her own name of traditional and original music, most recently, Old Man's Table: Tunes from Grandy Fagnan, (Métis fiddler from Camperville Manitoba), as well as dozens with other bands and artists.

Her play about her mentors in the world of Indigenous fiddling, Spirit of the Narrows, has been performed throughout Canada and in Scotland. Anne has created several other special shows (see below). Anne is also a dedicated teacher of traditional Canadian fiddling and other forms of world music and has created her own teaching method based on learning by ear and through rhythm, and started a fiddle program at RCM In Toronto which has been running for 20 years. She founded Worlds of Music Toronto (to teach and present many forms of World Music) and World Fiddle Day Toronto (to celebrate World Music on bowed string instruments). In 2016 she received the Estelle Klein award for her contributions to Canadian folk music, and in 2022 was inducted into the Canadian Fiddle Hall of Honour .