World Fiddle Day

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World Fiddle Day is celebrated every year on the third Saturday of May. It brings fiddle music events from around the world. The day was started in 2012 by Caoimhin Mac Aoidh, a fiddler from County Donegal. The date honors the death of Antonio Stradivari in 1737. The first Toronto event was in 2013, and Winnipeg joined that year. In 2015 Canada named World Fiddle Day National Fiddle Day, with celebrations in Owen Sound, St. John’s and Toronto, plus a Fiddle and Stepdancing Competition in Richmond, Ontario. In 2016, Fort York in Toronto hosted events on May 21, with Cuban fiddling demonstrations by Yosvani Castañeda Valdés and a Cape Breton fiddling workshop by Dan MacDonald, with other events in Owen Sound and Scartaglen, Ireland. By 2019 Kincardine, Ontario held its fifth annual World Fiddle Day with an open-air fiddle show, and Scartaglen featured talks about local fiddlers Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford.