Anne-Marie Williot’s musical repertoire boasts a collection of touching stories, silly scenarios and a whole lot of whimsy! The folk multi-instrumentalist melds flute, guitar, and accordion to create a quirky ambience often reminiscent of old-fashioned Paris.
 
Anne-Marie sat down to talk about being a self-taught musician, writing both emotional songs and goofy sing-alongs and how living in Spain became a catalyst for gaining stage confidence.


Can you go into how you got involved in music in the first place?
I’ve been involved since I was a really little kid. My mom is a musician, so I grew up with her always practicing piano, making us (my sisters and I) sing in all the choirs, and force feeding us the piano. I grew up hearing music all the time, mostly classical and then church music because my mom played the organ at different churches in different small towns.
 

How did you transition from learning the piano to learning all the other instruments that you play?
My first instrument was always singing. That’s what I always loved.  I always sang.  As soon as I was talking, I was singing.  Then, when I was 15 or so, I started writing music and I taught myself how to play the guitar.  Earlier than that, I learned the flute.  I was in band with the flute and recorder. More recently, about six years ago, I taught myself how to play the accordion.
 
See that, I feel is a very hard thing to teach yourself.
It kind of came intuitively for me. It was funny because I had been writing a lot of music and using the guitar to accompany myself, but then there was one song in my head that had to be for accordion.

​You were hearing that noise (laughs).
I was hearing the accordion, so that’s how I started. I wanted to teach myself how to play the song that was in my head. It happened that a friend of mine was selling his accordion around that time, so I bought it from him, and I taught myself how to play what was in my head.
 
I had looked up some charts to try to figure out how it worked.  Then, after composing that first piece for accordion, everything else I was writing for a while was for accordion.  I just kept teaching myself how to play what was in my head.
 
So do you prefer then, to do more things on the accordion?
I still like the guitar too, and I have been largely neglecting the flute for the last couple of years, but once in a while I pull it out, and I also love that.  I don’t really write for the flute. When I do shows, when its concert style shows on a stage, I alternate between the guitar and the accordion.
 
I also do another type of show which is the wandering minstrel accordion show. I think that’s what I’ll be doing at the festival actually.  For this type of show, I walk around and play accordion through a crowd.  I do that sometimes for parties, or festivals and markets. It works really well in places where people are doing other things, and I just walk around and play and bring ambience to the event.  
 
If the people around me are talking and doing their own thing, I just play instrumentally.  If I see that people are into listening, I’ll sing for them, for little groups throughout the crowd.
 

North American Fiddlers' Hall of Famer and champion fiddle player, Patti Kusturok is bound to give audiences a highly-entertaining and energetic show at this year’s Harvest Sun. The renowned musician’s style melds old-time fiddle with a contemporary feel and upbeat vibes - a recipe that is guaranteed to make you dance.

Patti spoke with us about her career highlights, first learning to play, and the importance of having a local festival like Harvest Sun.


Can you take me through your musical journey? What inspired you to start playing the fiddle?
I started with the Suzuki method at the age of four. My parents always had Fiddle music playing in the house and car, and at age six, I was able to play my first fiddle tune. My mom asked my Suzuki teacher if he could give me some old-time Fiddle tunes, but at that time, there was no room for that in the program. So, they found another teacher who allowed me to continue with my technical training and also let me play fiddle tunes. My dad was a bit of a fiddler, and my grandfather on my mom’s side was an accordion player from Scotland.

Can you talk a bit about your style of fiddling? It’s very high-energy, upbeat, and almost poppy at times.
I started playing for dances in my teens and credit my style to that. I seem to swing everything I play and that all stems from playing to make people dance. When I was growing up and going to competitions locally, we always had fiddling and jigging contests. I took up jigging, and my mom also made me learn how to dance as a very young child. I think that all contributes.


You’ve been a big part of Manitoba’s fiddle community for some time now, what are some of your favourite career highlights so far?
When I was young, I was fortunate to have met and played with some of my idols like Reg Bouvette, Marcel Meilleur, and Graham Townsend. Graham produced and played on some of my earlier records, and Reg and I recorded an album together when I was 16.

As for career highlights, I’m just happy to be able to be making a living doing this!​