Victoria-based fiddler supreme and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Lapp celebrates his 16th annual Home for Christmas concerts with three shows at Alix Goolden Hall this month.
In concert Friday and Saturday, Dec. 20-21, Lapp will be joined by nearly 200 students and Victoria Conservatory of Music alumni in a program of Canadian Christmas tunes.
Lapp’s seasonal extravaganza features The Swingin’ Shepherds, The Shiny Horn’aments, the 100-member Joy of Life Choir, Folkestra, BC Fiddle Orchestra and The Strings of Lights House Band. Special guests include acclaimed Victoria-raised fiddler Kendel Carson (Alan Doyle Band, the Paperboys) and Michael Fairbank, who will accompany Lapp and company on the hall’s 1910 Casavant pipe organ.
Lapp has been a force on Victoria’s music scene for decades. A talented country fiddler, jazz trumpeter and vocalist, music educator and folk music archivist, Lapp was born into a musical family in Prince George. He learned violin from his grandfather and steeped himself in the old-time fiddle tradition while still in elementary school.
By the late 1980’s Lapp was a member of the alternative folk group Spirit of the West, and in 1994 he formed the BC Fiddle Orchestra with his students. In 2018 Lapp played trumpet and fiddle on Canadian alt-rock stars 54-40’s unplugged tour.
Lapp has released 10 albums and four compilations of his recordings, and over the last 25 years he has collected over 1,000 BC fiddle tunes by 100 B.C. composers. Audiences will hear a variety of coast-to-coast Canadian Christmas favourites performed at this year’s concerts. Don’t miss it.
The Friday show starts at 7:30 p.m., while Saturday’s showtimes are at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Find tickets and more information online at eventbrite.ca.
– Joseph Blake
editor@mondaymag.com
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