There are more than 1000 of us and almost everyone is carrying a violin case - it's enough to put a twinkle in a mafia don's eye. But this is a microcosm of Australia's burgeoning fiddle community, a gathering of the violin-playing tribes from just about every musical genre. The only thing getting shot down is the myth that fiddling is a minority sport.
We're at Clarendon, NSW, for the fifth annual Hawkesbury National Fiddle Festival and the rosin dust flies all day long and well into the night. Forget the imagery the word fiddle usually conjures. There's no hokey screeching here, although there is some virtuosic "Texas hokum" from Victoria-based brothers Donal and Andy Baylor.
There's also jazz, blues, swing, gypsy, bluegrass and traditional and contemporary folk fiddling from some of the top musos in the country, including George Washingmachine, Nigel McLean, the Transylvaniacs, the Wise family folk band from Western Australia and Marcus Holden's eclectic group, Fiddlers Festival, from which the Hawkesbury gathering grew.
The festival is an opportunity for fiddlers young and old, amateur and professional, to make music together. Holden describes the event as a teaching festival, with workshops a big drawcard.
"You don't have to be a genius on the instrument to enjoy it," he says. "This is where the classical regime fails. You'll get to 18 and, unless you're a genius and you've dedicated yourself to a very narrow path, there's not a career for you."
The assembled fiddlers are a diverse bunch: campers and daytrippers, school students with and without teachers, fiddling families, adult learners and gifted youngsters seeking the path to a professional career.
Charlie Palmer-Love, 13, is one of 34 members of the combined string ensemble from the Hervey Bay and Urangan high schools in Queensland. The 17-hour bus trip was worth it, she says.
"I've learned a lot of new techniques and how to sing and play the violin at the same time," she says. "I love country music now. I never used to like it, never used to touch it, but it's really nice and so's jazz. Oh, and I got a hug from George Washingmachine; that was definitely the highlight for me."
Ensemble conductor Kim Morley says the festival experience will have a big influence on the school music program. "Most of the time we're doing classical music, a bit of Gershwin jazz and the odd Irish tune," he says. "So coming down here is opening up a world of music they haven't heard before."
Sally Biskupic of Granville, NSW, told her husband to babysit their three children while she came to find out what's beyond the Suzuki classical violin method. "I've realised that this is where my heart is - in the Scottish music, in the Irish music, in the jazz and the swing, and all that kind of stuff," she says. "I'll keep going with the classical to learn technique, but I'm definitely going to keep exploring the other things as well."
She's also enjoying the camaraderie among the adult learners. "I wanted to go to a workshop where I wasn't the only adult - I wasn't expecting that there'd be so many other people here just like me who have started out later on in life," she says.
And she's not intimidated by the talented teens sitting next to her in the workshops. "You just accept that you're in a different league and you're there for a different reason," she says.
Although the festival is a hands-on learning experience, it's also about having fun with the fiddle - or without it. Friday night we hear the session at a nearby tavern won't be happening, so a group of us descends on the tent of Queensland-based luthier David Guscott to find out if his home-brewing talents are as good as his electric violin-making skills. (They are.) And on Saturday, the Transylvaniacs make up for the relatively quiet first night, keeping the campers entertained with a rousing gypsy-fiddle jam that dances on and on through the wee hours.
About 60 fiddlers gather on Sunday for a mass fiddle rally, which festival director Lucia Okumura hopes will grow. It's her dream to break the world record for the largest fiddle orchestra. She has quite a way to go to beat the record, set in London in 1925, of 4000 players. But, as the rapid rise of the fiddle continues in Australia, she's confident she won't be waiting too long.
_ Lee Anthony