Patti Kusturok is a Winnipeg fiddler and teacher who won the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship three years in a row, from 1994 to 1996. She was the first woman, the first Manitoban, and the first fiddler from outside Ontario to take the title. She has recorded 18 albums since 1981, and in 2015 she posted a new fiddle tune video every day for a year.
Why Kusturok matters
Kusturok took the Métis dance fiddling of the Red River and put it on the biggest contest stage in Canada, then won three times. Her playing is built for dancers: steady, driving, and smooth. Fiddlers across North America now learn Canadian repertoire from her daily tune videos. For a jammer who wants to play jigs and reels with a clean bow arm, she is the model.
Life and career
Kusturok grew up in Manitoba and began fiddle at age four, after her parents enrolled her in Suzuki violin lessons. A later teacher mixed classical study with fiddle tunes while she worked through conservatory exams. She started teaching at 16, when her own teacher retired and handed her his students. She recorded her first album, Fiddle Fingers, in 1981 and Cross Canada Fiddling in 1983, and she won the Canadian Junior Fiddle Championship in 1985.
Through the late 1980s and 1990s she won the Manitoba championship six times, the Pembroke, Ontario, contest three times, and the Grand North American championship three times. She recorded The King and the Princess with Manitoba fiddler Reg Bouvette in 1988. She placed third at the Canadian Grand Masters in 1990, the contest’s first year, and won it in 1994, 1995, and 1996, listed from Lorette, Manitoba. In 1997 she judged the Grand National championship at Weiser, Idaho.
She has kept recording and teaching from Winnipeg since. Her albums include Stringin’ Them Along (1997), Plums in the Cooler (2010), Milestone (2014), and Momentum (2018). She played on the soundtracks of the Canadian films Children of My Heart and Spirit Rider and spoke at TEDxManitoba in 2012. In 2015 she posted 365 daily tune videos as Patti Kusturok’s 365 Days of Fiddle Tunes, and she repeated the project in 2019 and 2024. She is a Red River Métis citizen and has served as board chair of the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship.
Playing style
Kusturok’s sound is smooth. She credits it to a loose bowing wrist and to letting her fingers move on the bow as she plays, which keeps the tone even through fast string crossings. Her style is part Métis and part Québécois, with Down East and Ontario influences on top. She has said the Métis dance style became her main one because she played so many square dances in Manitoba. That shows in the pulse. Her reels have a lilt that pushes dancers forward, and her jigs have the same drive.
Influences and legacy
Kusturok names Calvin Vollrath, Reg Bouvette, and Graham Townsend as her main influences. She recorded a duet album with Bouvette. She also grew up hearing the Down East sound of Don Messer and the Ontario style, and both show in her playing.
Her son Alex Kusturok is a fiddler and a five-time Manitoba champion who toured Norway with her in 2011. She has taught at the Emma Lake Fiddle Camp, Shivering Strings in Winnipeg, and Falcon Lake Fiddle Camp, and she mentored in Aboriginal music programs in 2014 and 2016. Gordon Stobbe has said every phrase she plays is musical to ear, heart, and foot. Her daily tune videos have become a reference library for Canadian fiddle repertoire.
Signature tunes and songs
Maple Sugar Graham’s Hornpipe Bowing the Strings Prairie Mountain Rag Red Headed Fiddler’s Waltz St. Anne’s Reel.
Essential recordings
Fiddle Fingers (1981) The King and the Princess, with Reg Bouvette (1988) Stringin’ Them Along (1997) Milestone (2014) Momentum (2018)
Awards and honors
Canadian Junior Fiddle Champion (1985) Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship, third place (1990) Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship (1994, 1995, 1996) Manitoba Fiddle Champion (six times) Pembroke, Ontario, fiddle champion (three times) Grand North American Champion (three times) International Music Camp Fiddlers Hall of Fame (2009) Manitoba Fiddle Association Hall of Fame (2010) North American Fiddlers’ Hall of Fame (2016) Canadian Fiddle Hall of Honour, Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Association (2018 and 2019 as builder, 2022 as performer)
Watch and listen
Kusturok teaches Maple Sugar, a tune every Canadian jam plays. Watch her wrist stay loose on the string crossings.
Day 298 of her 365 Days of Fiddle Tunes: Bowing the Strings, the title tune of her 1984 album.
What to learn from Kusturok
Learn Maple Sugar from her lesson video. It is in every Canadian jam, and her version is the clean standard. The technique to steal is her bow hand. Loosen the wrist, let the fingers flex on the bow, and play a reel at dance tempo without any accents from the arm. If the tone stays even and the beat stays steady, you have it.
Sources
Patti Kusturok, Canadian Fiddle Hall of Honour, Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Association Past Champions and Results, Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Association Biography, Patti Kusturok Patti Kusturok: Red River Métis fiddler talks legendary career, Manitoba Métis Federation Patti Kusturok, Wikipedia
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the bluegrass fiddle guide for more players. Kusturok learned from Calvin Vollrath and Graham Townsend, and her son Alex Kusturok carries the tradition on. Other Canadian Grand Masters champions include Louis Schryer and April Verch, who followed her in 1997.