April Verch is an Ottawa Valley fiddler, singer, and step dancer from Rankin, Ontario. She won the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship in 1997 at age 18 and the Canadian Open Old Time Fiddle Championship the next year. Since 2000 she has toured full time under her own name, released 18 albums, and earned two Juno nominations.
Why Verch matters
The Ottawa Valley has its own fiddle and step dance style, and Verch is the player who carried it around the world. She won the two biggest Canadian contests back to back, then built a touring career on the sound instead of leaving it behind. She also dances while she fiddles, which puts the link between the tune and the feet in front of every audience. If you want to hear what a Canadian contest waltz or a Valley reel is supposed to do to a dance floor, her records show you.
Life and career
Verch was born on April 7, 1978, in Rankin, Ontario, in the Ottawa Valley. She started step dancing at age three with teachers Buster and Pauline Brown. She took her first fiddle lesson at age six with Rob Dagenais. As a child she played with the Deep River Symphony Orchestra and danced in a quartet called the Duelling Dancers with her sister and two cousins. She won the Maritime Fiddle Festival in 1988 and 1989 while still in grade school. Her first record, Springtime Fiddle With April Verch, came out in 1992, when she was 14.
She won the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship in Ottawa in 1997, listed from Pembroke, Ontario. In 1998 she won the Canadian Open Old Time Fiddle Championship. She then studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston with Matt Glaser and Darol Anger. Early on she also worked as a backup fiddler for Tommy Hunter and the Vancouver band Mad Pudding.
In 2000 she began touring full time as the April Verch Band. Her Rounder Records debut, Verchuosity, came out in 2001 and earned a Juno nomination. She toured with the fiddle show Bowfire, appeared as a guest with Irish tenor John McDermott, and played the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Albums followed at a steady pace: From Where I Stand in 2003, Take Me Back in 2006, Steal the Blue in 2008, That’s How We Run in 2011, Bright Like Gold in 2013, and The Newpart in 2015.
In 2016 she formed a duo with clawhammer banjo player and singer Joe Newberry. In 2018 she recorded The Heritage Projekt with the Estonian quartet Curly Strings. Her 2019 album Once a Day brought a second Juno nomination in 2020. She has since worked as a duo with her husband, musician Cody Walters, and released Passages and Pairings in 2023. She is now based in North Carolina and directs the Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Playing style
Verch plays the Ottawa Valley style, a Canadian dance tradition with a strong, even pulse and clean single-note bowing built for step dancers. Her tone is bright and her rhythm sits square on the beat, which is what contest judges in Canada reward. She sings and dances in the same show, and she will fiddle and step dance at the same time, so the tune and the foot rhythm come from one body.
Her records widen the frame. She mixes Valley tunes with old-time, bluegrass, country, and Americana songs, and her bands have used banjo, guitar, and bass rather than the piano backing common in Canadian contest fiddling. The Berklee years with Glaser and Anger show in how she phrases a swing tune or a slow air.
Influences and legacy
Her first teachers were the Browns for dance and Rob Dagenais for fiddle. The Ottawa Valley tradition itself is her main source, the same regional style that produced Graham Townsend. At Berklee she studied with Matt Glaser and Darol Anger. She won the Grand Masters the year after Patti Kusturok finished a three year run, and the year before Scott Woods began his. She now passes the style on through camps, master classes, a Mel Bay method book on Canadian fiddle, a tune book, and a step dance DVD.
Signature tunes and songs
Verchuosity Bright Like Gold The Newpart Once a Day Steal the Blue.
Essential recordings
Verchuosity (Rounder, 2001) Take Me Back (2006) Bright Like Gold (2013) The Newpart (2015) Once a Day (2019)
Awards and honors
Maritime Fiddle Festival champion (1988, 1989) Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Champion (1997) Canadian Open Old Time Fiddle Champion (1998) Juno Award nomination for Verchuosity (released 2001) Juno Award nomination for Once a Day (2020)
What to learn from Verch
Learn a Valley reel from Verchuosity and play it with a metronome until the beat never moves. The technique to steal is her step dance timing. Tap a clogging rhythm with your foot while you play a reel, then try a waltz. It feels awkward for a week. After that, your bow arm locks to the dance pulse, and that steadiness is what separates a contest fiddler from a jam fiddler.
Sources
About, April Verch Past Champions and Results, Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Association April Verch, Wikipedia April Verch releases, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more Canadian contest fiddlers. Verch shares the Ottawa Valley tradition with Graham Townsend. Her Grand Masters title sits between the reigns of Patti Kusturok and Scott Woods, and Shane Cook won the title three times after her.