Jennifer Geens
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 02/04) - A 13-year-old Yellowknife boy played the fiddle with the Regina Symphony Orchestra last Friday night.

Keaton Roy, a Grade 8 student at Range Lake North school, travelled to Saskatchewan along with five other fiddle students from the NWT to perform in a Strings Across the Sky concert.

"Right before I was going to play I had butterflies," Roy said.

Keaton and Strings Across The Sky founder Andrea Hansen played Faded Love together for the audience that was about half symphony-goers and half fiddle lovers.

Keaton was fresh off his third-place finish in an adult fiddling contest at K'amba Carnival in Hay River.

The opportunity to play in Regina came about when Strings Across the Sky sent an e-mail to past fiddle camp participants, inviting them to perform with students at the Regina workshop.

But Keaton's performance almost didn't happen because his mother Ruth Roy needed to raise the money to send him there.

Ruth called upon every government agency, aboriginal organization, fundraising group and business she could think of. With only a few weeks to go she sent a letter to the Native Communications Society and they donated the bulk of the money to fly Keaton and his instructor/chaperon Bobbi Bouvier to Regina.

"The board was very pleased to help Keaton," said NCS executive director Sabet Biscaye.

The donation was not something NCS does often, but Biscaye visited the Roy home to hear Keaton play and was very impressed. Biscaye has a niece in Fort Resolution who is also involved with Strings Across the Sky and who also had to fundraise to attend the fiddle camp in Fort Simpson.

Ruth wishes there were more funding programs in place to help young Northern artists pursue their dreams, and Biscaye agrees.

"The onus was on his mom to raise the money," said Biscaye.

"It would be nice if there was a fund to go to. We hope our contribution in some small way helps Keaton further himself."

Keaton and the other students earned a standing ovation from the audience at the Saskatchewan Centre for the Arts.

Now Keaton has a new goal.

"I want to play in the symphony," he said.

Famous encounter

Keaton began playing the fiddle after he encountered Kole Crook, a well-known fiddler from Hay River who died in a plane crash in 2001. The two met at Folk on the Rocks in the summer of 2000.

Keaton, who was 10 at the time, asked if he could play Crook's fiddle.

Crook told him that the kid who jigged the longest on stage could give his fiddle a try.

"He was so cool," said Keaton, who had never touched a fiddle until then.

Keaton managed to outlast the other dancers and got to play Crook's fiddle on stage -- while Crook jigged to his playing.

Keaton's first fiddle was one of several donated by Strings Across the Sky to the Tree of Peace Friendship Centre.

Keaton recently found out fiddling runs in the family. At K'amba Carnival, fellow fiddler Angus Beaulieu told Keaton that his great-grandfather (Ruth's grandfather) was George Norn, one of the top fiddlers in the NWT.