Lizzy Hoyt can play her fiddle at breathtaking speed, but nothing is rushed about her music.
She is too much of a perfectionist for that, too respectful of her art, its history and tradition.
Since developing her singing and songwriting skills, she has shown the same qualities. Her acclaimed folk ballad Vimy Ridge, inspired by a visit to the First World War site in France, took more than two years to complete.
A lot of time went into arrangement, which Edmonton-based Hoyt sees as key to successful emotional expression.
“I don’t change my arrangements,” she says. “ I decide on one arrangement that is best for the song.”
Local music fans will be able to judge her efforts on Nov. 19 when Hoyt performs at the Barrhead Composite High School drama theatre, starting at 8 p.m.
Vimy Ridge is likely to be the climax of a 20-song set reflecting her interest in Celtic and Maritime fiddling and old country music.
If some detect echoes of Alison Krauss, Natalie MacMaster or Dolly Parton in her work, that is unlikely to be an accident, for she counts the trio among her musical idols.
“They have been a big influence,” says Hoyt, a nominee for traditional singer of the year in the 2011 Canadian Folk Music Awards. “I am a big admirer of Krauss as a fiddle player and her singing inspired me not to change my voice. I also love Dolly Parton.”
Chris Tabbert will be backing Hoyt on guitar and mandolin, while Keith Rempel will play the upright bass and add harmony to the singing.
It will be the first time Hoyt – described as a Canadian “east-meets-west” performer – has brought her act to Barrhead.
She is looking forward to delivering a mix of rhythmic fiddling and old traditional folk music.
“It will be a high-energy show,” she promises.
Hoyt, who teaches the fiddle when her demanding schedule permits, seemed destined to become a musician from the time she picked up a violin as a four-year-old.
Being the daughter of Janet Scott Hoyt, a piano professor at the University of Alberta and David Hoyt, a retired French horn player with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, meant her childhood was steeped in music.
At 15 her musical interests became more focused when family connections introduced her to country artist Eli Barsi, for whom Hoyt began to do backup fiddling.
Her second gig was performing at the Calgary Stampede’s Grandstand Breakfast Show in front of thousands. Since then she’s refined her style combining fiddle, guitar and bass with Irish whistles, Scottish border pipes, harp, bodhran and accordion.
While working in Barsi’s studio in Branson, Miss., the Harry Ainlay High School graduate was encouraged to record her own album, My Red Shoes, which received favourable reviews in 2007.
Hoyt released her second album, Home in June 2010, produced by Juno Award-winner Jeremiah McDade.
Although the 14-track CD has some new versions of Dolly Parton’s Jolene, Allister MacGillvray’s Song for the Mira and Jay Unger’s Ashokan Farewell, the remaining original songs mirror Hoyt’s love of the prairies and the vast Alberta sky.
She wrote the title track, Home, about Alberta, a place she loves to return to after her world travels.
Home also contains Vimy Ridge, a song which sufficiently swayed judges in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest to name her one of three finalists in 2010.
“I wrote the music and lyrics over a span of about two and a half years after being moved by the incredible sacrifice of so many young men and the unfortunate idea that the war was ‘the war to end all wars,” says Hoyt.
She visited the site while studying sociology on a University of Alberta exchange program in 2005.
The Vimy Ridge Memorial Site and Veterans Affairs Canada have now given Hoyt permission to use archival footage and pictures of herself to produce a musical video.
It is perhaps not surprising that Hoyt was moved by an event nearly 95 years old.
When she talks music, Hoyt displays a reverence for its history.
She uses words like honesty and rawness to describe old records of banjo players and her third release, a Christmas album, is a recording of ancient carols.
“I love playing tunes from 200 years ago that have been passed down from generation to generation,” she says. “It’s music that celebrates different types of life. I find that really neat.”
It’s as if she is discussing something priceless, a family heirloom perhaps, that should be cherished and nurtured before handed over to the next generation.
On stage, Hoyt eschews glitz and glamour to provide a show where music is the focus, even when she is applying a bit of razzle-dazzle with her virtuoso fiddling.
Although an experienced performer, Hoyt is still only in her mid-20s.
It is reassuring to know the future of music is literally in such skilful, youthful hands.
Lizzy Hoyt is one of several acts being organized by Barrhead Arts Council for the 2011-2012 season. The others are Ernestine Hatpin and The Prairie Dogs (Jan. 20, 2012); Woody Holler (Feb. 29, 2012); and Harpdog Brown (April 27, 2012).
Tickets are available at Comfort Corner and Right Angle. They cost $50 for four shows, or $20 per performance.
