Baltimore Fiddle Fair celebrates its 20th birthday with a humdinger of a live double-CD collection. Audience participation is kept to a minimum in favour of rapt, attentive playing and a vastly eclectic line-up. Capturing five years' worth of festival highlights, this isn't so much a snapshot as a 3D feature, illustrating the full spectrum of the fiddle's potential, especially when the dreamlike Wedding March From Østerdalen by Annbjørg Lien easily cosies up alongside the joyous, ragged edges of Dirk Powell and Joel Savoy's Cajun The Grand Prairie Waltz . This is a journey with as many picaresque twists and turns as you'll encounter anywhere in west Cork: a delightful excursion that embraces music from Norway to Scotland and Mali and much else in between.
fiddlefair.com