Jerry Holland new
owner of Ceilidh
Trail music school.
The Inverness
Oran, July 12, 2006
Written by Frank
MacDonald
Jerry Holland is the
new owner of the
Ceilidh Trail School
of Celtic Music.
Founded in 1995 by
Janine Randall, the
Ceilidh Trail School has
attracted students from
around the world to its
Inverness setting to be
taught the Cape Breton
fiddling tradition from
masters like Holland,
Buddy MacMaster, Natalie
MacMaster and a host of
others who have been
instructors at the
school.
On Monday evening,
at the school’s
Masters Concert held
at the Inverness
County Centre for
the Arts, Randall
announced the change
of ownership.
“In 1995 the idea
started,” Randall
said. “I was looking
for a way to do
business here. I am
a first generation
American whose
father couldn’t find
work here,”
explained the
daughter of Johnny
Muise who moved to
Boston to find work
and raise a family.
“The idea of the
school was to bring
people into
Inverness to learn
from fiddlers like
Buddy, Jerry and
others. I thought it
was a great
opportunity to hear
the music the way I
did since I was five
years old.”
Randall said that in
the beginning the
school concept
included bringing
instructors from
Ireland and Scotland
as well as Cape
Breton instructors,
but that idea was
abandoned when she
realized that people
were coming to the
school from across
the continent,
Europe and Asia to
learn Cape Breton
fiddling.
For the past three
years, Janine
Randall said, she
has been promising
herself that each
would be the last
year for her at the
school. Last year
her father Johnny
Muise, music lover
and master of the
clappers, passed
away. For those who
knew him, the pride
he took in what his
daughter Janine
brought to Inverness
summers over the
passed decade was
evident.
“I really wish he
were here tonight to
see that the school
is in good hands and
going forward with
Jerry Holland,”
Janine Randall told
the audience of
students and county
residents.
Holland had a few
words to say about
the transition,
demonstrating with
his fiddle what this
year’s and future
students could
expect by way of
instruction as the
Ceilidh Trail School
of Celtic Music goes
into its 11th year.
Each Monday when the
school is operating,
it hosts a Masters
Concert, an
opportunity for the
students to hear the
school’s instructors
perform in public.
It is a concert that
usually draws fans
from far beyond the
school’s
enrollment, and on
Monday evening those
fans filled the
seats at the arts
centre to listen to
this year’s staff of
Holland, Kimberly
Fraser, Troy
MacGillivray [and
Howie MacDonald.]
Throughout the
evening the Masters
Concert was a
marvelous
mix-and-match as the
four fiddlers
performed in solos,
duos and a quartet
of a finale, with
Fraser, MacGillivray,
MacDonald and Janine
Randall taking turns
sitting in at the
piano to accompany
whichever fiddlers
were on stage. It
was enough to make
anyone who scratches
or wants to scratch
a bow across a bunch
of strings think
that there are a few
things Jerry, Kim,
Troy or Howie might
have to teach them.
The ease with which
these fiddlers moved
in and out of each
other’s music
reminded this
reporter of a couple
interviewed during
the 2005 Celtic
Colours.
“We go to a lot of
music events in
Chicago,” the woman
said, “but we’ve
been here in Cape
Breton for five
days, we’ve been to
several concerts,
and we have yet to
see a sheet of
music. How do they
do that? Fiddlers
who are shaking
hands because
they’ve just been
introduced sit down
on the stage, and
they know exactly
what to play.”
This has been the
earliest opening of
the school since its
first summer, and it
will operate for
just this week, the
staff instructing
the 50 students who
have enrolled. The
future plans for the
school under
Holland's direction
will develop through
the winter. It will
continue to be
called the Ceilidh
Trail School of
Celtic Music, and so
Janine Randall
speculates that it
will be situated
somewhere along
Route 19.
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