Miriam is a versatile fiddle player and violinist, performing, teaching and composing music in Victoria, BC, Canada. She is a member of The Sweet Lowdown (roots, old-time and folk) who’s debut album has been nominated for “Album Of The Year” by the 2012 Vancouver Island Music Awards, and she performs regularly with The Moonshiners (bluegrass, blues, country). She also plays in a celtic/swing/old-time duo with her partner Jeff. She has been a member of Shady Characters, and Shearwater, and performs on occasion with the Victoria klezmer band The Yiddish Columbia State Orchestra.
Miriam started violin at age 10, with Gretchen Anner at the Toronto Waldorf School. After moving to BC in 1995 she studied with Wallace Leung at the Delta Music School. She was concert master of the Intermediate Orchestra of the Delta Youth Orchestra for two years before joining the Senior Orchestra. At the same time she joined the Vancouver Philharmonic. In 1997 she was concert master of the BC Honours Orchestra. After completing high school, Miriam began a music degree at the Vancouver Academy of Music while studying with Mark Koenig. After 3 years, with her third year recital completed, she moved to Victoria, where she finished her Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Victoria with Ann Elliott-Goldshmid. Miriam began teaching privately while still in school and in April of 2005 began teaching violin and fiddle at Larsen School of Music. In March of 2006 she began teaching at Daniel Lapp’s House of Music. She currently teaches in her home studio and at fiddle camps in British Columbia and the North West Territories. Miriam has played in shows at Vancouver’s Gateway Theatre, with the Kamloops Symphony and on Vancouver Island with the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, the Victoria Chamber Orchestra, and the Raven Baroque Ensemble. In addition to playing weddings and private gigs, she loves busking for the summertime tourists and sitting in on old-time, celtic and bluegrass jams around Victoria.
Miriam has taught at Fiddleworks fiddle camps on Saltpsring Island BC, (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010), British Columbia Bluegrass Workshop in Sorrento BC (2010, 2011), the January Jamboree in Fort Simpson, NWT (2010, 2012), the Kole Crook Fiddle Society Fiddle Camp in Hay River, NWT, (2008, 2009), Victoria FiddleFest (2010), as well as Vancouver Island Fiddle Camp (2010, 2011).
Recent performances include:
2010 Canadian Folk Music Awards with Shearwater
Coombs Bluegrass Festival and Edge Of The World Music Festival (Haida Gwaii) with The Sweet Lowdown
Sooke River Bluegrass Festival with Flash In The Pan
Victoria Francophone Festival
Butchart Gardens in Victoria, with Flash In The Pan and The Sweet Lowdown