LOVELL — When champion fiddler Don Roy played in Lovell’s Brick Church for the Performing Arts last year, the response was immediate. “He has to come back again!” So on Thursday evening, July 23, the Don Roy Trio will once more perform in Lovell.

What makes a “quintessential Downeast fiddler,” as Bau Graves, director of the Old Town School of Folk Music, has named Don? Here’s his answer: Roy combines “the dynamism of Quèbècois, Acadian, and Cape Breton traditions from Canada with the grit of old-timey Appalachian, bluegrass, western swing and contest fiddling to the south and the lilt of international Irish music.” You have to hear it to believe it.

Don himself comes from Franco American – and musical – ancestry. His grandparents emigrated to Maine from Quebec, and beginning at age 6, Don was learning to play music at family house parties. At 16, he won his first fiddle competition, the beginning of a long string of awards including the Massachusetts and Maine State Championships, the Harold Carter Memorial Award for country fiddling and (three times) the Individual Artist Fellowship Award from the Maine Arts Commission. Don’s CD “Thanks for the Lift” earned a nomination for the
National Heritage Award.

Cindy Roy, Don’s wife, brings vivid Acadian traditions to the ensemble, playing guitar and piano. If we’re lucky on July 23, Cindy and gifted bassist Jay Young might step away from their instruments occasionally and demonstrate some lightning fast step dancing as well.

Since 2000 Don has given his talents back to the community by teaching free monthly musical sessions in Portland, which have evolved into the nonprofit organization Fiddle-icious, with a staff offering tutoring in fiddle, step dancing, singing, and accompaniment. See more about this extraordinary group at www.fiddleicious.org. Don also makes and plays his own violins.

Don Roy has played in many distinguished venues, including the National Folk Festival, Bangor; Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Kennedy Center, Washington D.C.; the New Bedford Summerfest, New Bedford, Mass.; and the Lowell Folk Festival, Lowell, Mass.

The Don Roy Trio will be performing at the Brick Church for the Performing Arts on Christian Hill Road in Lovell at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 23. Tickets (at the door) will be $10 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under. For more information, please call 207-925-1500 or go to

www.lovellbrickchurch.org.